


War of the Crystals

by Mythweaver



Series: Chronicles of the High Summoner [2]
Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-03-05
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 226,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythweaver/pseuds/Mythweaver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Novelization. Direct continuation of The Summoned Land. Written from the perspective of Rydia, and follows in-game events (and some non-game events) from Rydia's return to the party, through the game's final battle. Originally begun in 2009, this work is still in progress. This story was also written post-DS remake and names and terms have been altered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            The smell of sulfurous air and the heat of the magma seas to the south and east were not the first of Rydia’s concerns. The magic of the transportation spell fled her body like an electrical charge. She stood on the ramparts of an enormous castle with the concussion of explosives shaking the stones beneath her feet. She made as quick sense of her surroundings as possible and ran for the first door she could find, almost loosing her footing during the bombardment. If Cecil was going to be anywhere, it was in the throne room of this castle, and that meant reaching lower ground. She was so focused on this task, that she barely even noticed the surprised gasps of short stout men carrying spears and axes as she passed them along the way. She wasn’t even sure where she was going, but she barreled down staircases in circuitous fashion, past guards, and followed the castle’s unrest to its source—a set of double doors engraved with symbols and letters inset with gems of the finest craft. Men were beating at the doors in a frenzy, shouting unknown curses and possibly oaths to their gods; but for all their numbers, they could not budge the door.

            Rydia hadn’t been operating out of her own consciousness from the instant she’d arrived here, and the moment she saw the doors, she felt the presence of strong magic barring them shut.

            “Stand back!” she shouted at the men, raising her arms as they glanced at her in surprise. When she gestured again for them to leave, they stepped back in time enough for Rydia to hurl lightning at the locks, melting them clear off. The doors burst ajar and Rydia bolted into the room behind, not quite expecting to see what she found.

            She was returned to the present as if by the force of a great wave, and when she saw Cecil wretchedly pinned to the floor faced with his own demise, there were no words to capture the emotion she felt. She sprang again into action. She was a summoner. This was exactly why she’d been sent—to help turn the tide of the war.

            Rydia began to chant the words of the one summoning spell she had yet to use in battle. One that she felt was long overdue. Mist began to fill the corners of the room before its namesake summon had even arrived, and as Rydia began to advance, she wondered if she looked like an ethereal creature herself, swathed in the concealing vapors. Her spell rose to a crescendo in her ears, drowning out fear, drowning out the presence of the others in the room, and when she finally finished calling out Mist’s name, the tug of another life drawing on her essence nearly brought her eyes to tears. Mist came into being, roaring at Golbez’s paltry creation with defiant ferocity. The very sound made Rydia’s bones shudder, and she watched the clash of dragons from nearly outside of herself. Mist’s attack was chillingly beautiful, muted silver against a writhing darkness and it sizzled through the air like razor sharp rain. It sliced through Golbez’s summoned dragon, tearing apart the shadows that bound it into existence and scattered them into nothing. Even Golbez reeled backwards, caught off-guard.

 _He’s distracted. Act fast,_ she thought rapidly as she crossed half the distance of the room in a heartbeat.

By the time she had drawn near to Cecil, Golbez had recovered enough to see the full damage of her summoning.

“An Eidolon. My shadow dragon defeated by mere mist! Impossible…” he seethed, looking for the person to punish for this interference.

Rydia hastily opened the pouch the queen had given her and pulled out four phials, suspecting their contents to be remedies. She threw them at the floor directly behind her friends and watched them shatter into specks of crystal and glistening vapor. Golbez’s spell that held even the fallen in his control failed in the presence of the phials’ contents; but Rydia wasn’t ready to reveal herself quite yet. Instead, she shouted out to Cecil with as much confidence as she could muster.

            “It’s all right! You can move now!”

            Cecil swiveled in the direction of her voice, but the air was still thick with moisture and Rydia remained hidden within it, not wanting to lose the element of surprise.

            “I know that voice…” she heard Cecil mutter, “Who’s there?” he demanded.

 _Not yet,_ she convinced herself. She needed to plan her next move before she lost her brief advantage. Golbez was already past cursing the loss of his dragon and had begun blindly throwing attacks into the fog that blanketed half the room. She took her place among the battle line and dismissed Mist from her service. With the summon’s absence, the room’s precipitation also left, and Rydia was finally revealed for who she was. The look on the former Dark Knight’s face was that of complete and utter shock.

“Rydia!” Cecil sputtered out, as if seeing a ghost.

“No time, Cecil, take these and revive the others!” she told him, tossing the pouch given her by Asura.

Cecil was still too in shock to move but he eventually fumbled to get the pouch open and tended to the fallen, leaving the offensive momentarily in Rydia’s hands.

She began another incantation, focusing her energies on the summoning of Ifrit. The room’s temperature began to rise, preceding the fire demon’s grand entrance. Rydia hoped his foul temper would be an asset to her today, enough to blaze through Golbez’s dark cloak of magic. Ifrit tore through the fabric of the dimension like a crazed animal, and the feeling of molten rock stifled Rydia’s breathing and caused sweat to saturate her robes and stream down the sides of her face. Ifrit’s fireball blazed across the crystal room, sending flames and light bouncing off of the walls and ceiling and melting portions of the floor. It struck Golbez with an impact that sounded like an avalanche and in the explosion, Rydia glanced briefly at the others to see Rosa conscious and assisting Yang while Cecil rushed to heal the man in blue armor—Kain. When she returned her attentions to Golbez, the man stood unharmed and unblemished, dark armor glistening like polished onyx. Ifrit howled at this injustice, the sound lingering even after Rydia had dismissed him to the Feymarch. She herself stood frozen solid despite the residual heat of the summoning. How could that have done _nothing_? She had never taken the time to notice how powerfully interwoven the enchantments upon Golbez’s armor had been created, but now she saw it as clear as day—he was impervious to whichever element he chose!   

Cecil caught her gaze, his gray eyes as concerned as hers. In that moment, Rydia felt completely helpless. She knew no spells that could aid her, nothing that would tell her the secrets of Golbez’s protective spell! Thoughts raced through her head at a tremendous pace and all the while, she could hear Cecil chanting, drawing on words that she thought she’d once known. Could it be that he could decipher the secrets? Until she knew for sure that her efforts wouldn’t be uselessly spent, she dug through another pouch at her side and pulled from it the spare quantity of potions that she carried. She gave Yang one, Rosa another, tossing it to the white mage, as the other woman narrowly missed an arc of lightning that singed her already sooty white robes. Yang now stood on his feet, disoriented, and even though Rydia had helped him, he was not entirely aware of her presence. In the din of the room, she was a stranger they didn’t yet have time to address.

“Ice!” Cecil hissed at Rydia as he bore the brunt of a powerful fire spell and plunged to his knees. “Ice,” he repeated, looking her straight in the eyes.

“Please be quick, Shiva, I need you,” Rydia murmured to herself, beginning the complex lines that spanned dimension and time to bring this third summon to bear.

Only half-way through the incantation she felt the drain of an attack, magic that crept into her skin like a toxin and weakened every muscle and sparked every nerve painfully. Despite herself, she was on the ground in an instant, unable to control her limbs under this malady. Moments after losing her strength, she was again revived as she felt Rosa’s magic counteract the first and infuse her with energy. Rydia stood and opened her eyes, beckoning Shiva to enter—frost clinging to the tiles and causing Rydia’s breath to fog the air. Shiva appeared in her full regalia, stunning and deadly. Swords of ice were in her hands and she raised them to the ceiling where they shattered like glass and called upon a tempest of snow and ice that hurtled toward Golbez. It sliced a chunk out of the heavy breastplate and he stumbled backwards, momentarily losing his footing and being slowed by the intense weight of ice that clung to his armor.

            _Success!_ Rydia thought triumphantly, and considered a second pass with Shiva’s magic, but Cecil reached out and gripped her arm, halting her command. He shook his head, and Rydia had enough presence of mind not to be swept up in the euphoria of magic, dismissing Shiva before she did something rash.

            To her right, Yang was moving, running toward Golbez with claws extended. Rydia watched in a daze, sensing, rather than seeing, a change in the magicks that surrounded their enemy. Yang’s attack was repelled, and Yang was sent flying by a hard blow from Golbez’s gauntleted arm. To her left, Rosa was tirelessly chanting an endless stream of spells, and farthest from her, Rydia could see where the dragoon Kain stood. She felt nothing toward him, not even anger, but she hoped beyond hope that he was truly on their side this time. He didn’t disappoint.

            Between Cecil’s strikes of the sword, Rosa’s chanting, and Yang’s physical barrage, Kain would fly into the air toward the rafters and hang there as if suspended, only to plunge downward again and strike with a force that shook the floor. Rydia was amazed at the grace he achieved in flight the first time she saw him launch into the air, but her ruminations had been cut short by Cecil’s instructions, revealing Golbez’s new weakness whenever it turned, and turn it often did.

Ramuh, Shiva, Ifrit, Mist—all of them were summoned, some of them several times, and while the battle lengthened on, Rydia came near to dropping on so many occasions that she’d lost count of how many debts of gratitude she owed Rosa. Weapons and magic exchanged blows, and blood trickled down Rydia’s forehead and into her eyes, but she paid it little heed. She was consumed with the power she called upon, bent on her task. The presence of her friends only bolstered her further. She felt like a person crazed, a beast, and it gave her unnatural courage.

            At last, when Rosa’s voice was hoarse, Yang’s fists dripped blood, and even Cecil was weary of lifting his sword, did Golbez finally fall to the floor. His armor had become brittle and cracked, the magic protecting it having all but faded, and he collapsed in a heap of metal and flesh.

            Rydia was so relieved she fell to the floor with exhaustion and took several minutes to reclaim her breath. Her companions were each expressing their own brands of relief, and when Rydia was more conscious of her surroundings, she watched Rosa run into Cecil’s arms and bury her face into his shoulder and neck.

“We—we did it! We defeated him!” Cecil cried, looking unable to believe it himself. Rydia finally stood to join in his celebrating, and suddenly found all eyes upon her. Rosa detached herself from Cecil and ran to Rydia’s side, taking her by the shoulders.

            “Rydia? Rydia!” the golden haired mage exclaimed, hugging her so fiercely, Rydia couldn’t breathe for the second time since the end of the battle. “You saved our lives!”

            Rydia smiled sheepishly and felt tears creep to her eyes, which she hastily rubbed away along with sweat and blood.

            Cecil was walking toward the two of them, and he stared at her like one studies a book. “What happened to you? We thought you were dead! Leviathan’s attack—”

            “He didn’t kill me, he…well, he _saved_ me. He brought me to the home of the Eidolons,” Rydia tried to explain in a rush.

            “The home of the Eidolons?” he repeated.

            “They call it the Feymarch,” she went on. “I lived among them and befriended them. They trained me in the art of black magic and also in the lore of summoning.”

            “But just look at you! You’re so much _older_ now, and your hair and everything about you…You were just a little girl the last time I saw you,” Rosa was practically fluttering.

            Rydia smiled at the woman she’d looked up to for so long, acting like a little girl herself. “Time in the Feymarch is not the same as the time outside of it. Ten years have passed for me since we were separated and you journeyed here.”

            “Ten years…you trained for ten years with the Eidolons and grew into a young woman while we covered the world in search of the crystals,” Cecil tried to summarize.

            “I was waiting for you to come here, I knew someday I’d be able to come back to you!”

            “I’m so happy to see you, Rydia!” Rosa repeated happily.

            Rydia beamed. “Rosa, you have no idea how glad I am to see you safe!”

            From the corner of her eye, she could see Kain approaching, hesitantly, maintaining Cecil as a shield between them as much as possible. Rydia’s smile faded somewhat, as she heard him ask Cecil who she was.

            “This is Rydia of Mist,” Cecil explained.

            When Kain reeled backwards, guilt constraining his features, Rydia felt a satisfied smile return to the corners of her mouth. _Good, let him feel guilty_ , she thought.

            “The child?” he nearly croaked.

            At his reaction, Cecil seemed to remember the past as well, and looked at Rydia with a pained expression. “But why did you come to save us? If it wasn’t for us, your mother—”

            “Don’t say another word!” Rydia quickly interrupted him. “The queen of the Eidolons told me this: the wheels of a fate greater than us all are turning now. She told me we must stand against it…and we must stand together. I agree with her, and so I’m coming with you through whatever dangers we face. I’m strong now, and I’ll prove it!”

            “You have nothing to prove to me, Rydia,” Cecil replied, shaking his head. “And thank you.”

            “Cecil!” Yang suddenly shouted, and everyone turned to look where he pointed.

            Golbez had already pushed himself up to his knees and was crawling up the crystal dais when everyone realized just what was going on.

            “Give up, Golbez, you’ve been defeated. Your quest for the crystals has ended!” Kain shouted, menacing.

            Ignoring Kain’s challenge, Golbez was atop the dais stairs and the darkness of his presence returned to plague their senses, seizing them all in place.

            His gloved fingers took hold of the crystal, and he turned to look at Cecil through the shadows of his helm.

            “Death will not claim dominion over me,” he hissed. “You haven’t won this day, Cecil. We will meet again.” And with those foretelling words, Golbez vanished into thin air. When the gravity of his evil presence was gone, everyone ran forward instinctively but to no end.

            There was heavy silence that followed Golbez’s escape. Kain cursed and Cecil’s expression was grave. Rydia too felt the exhaustion of battling catching up to her now that it had all been for nothing.

            “We need to explain this to King Giott,” Rosa said at last. “And pray this wasn’t our last chance.”

            “You’re right,” Yang agreed. “We’ve finally been re-united, we can’t let Golbez defeat us now!”

            “Let’s go,” Cecil announced, wiping his sword clean and returning it to his sheath.

            Everyone nodded, and it was Yang who led the way out of the decimated crystal room to meet with this king that Rydia had never met. She followed them anxiously. It had been a long time since she’d felt what it was like to be at war, and this confrontation had tested her beyond what she’d expected.

            _Eidolons…_ she thought desperately, _please continue to lend me your support. I truly know I’ll need it!_  

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

            There were a few varieties of exhaustion that Rydia had come to know in her short life. Physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, and spiritual exhaustion. Somehow she now embodied all three, and she reasoned that the others must feel the same.

The five of them filed out of the crystal room as a bedraggled group, charred, slashed, and lathered in sweat. It was only Yang’s steady grip on Rydia’s arm and his comforting smile that kept her from falling onto her face.

When they entered the throne room, a short man with a tanned face that looked like it had been burnt by magma, entered from the opposite side. He wore a pronged helmet, and surrounding him was a general company of guards. Judging by the ornamentation of his robes, Rydia assumed this was the King Giott Rosa had been referring to. She waited with Cecil and the rest of them as the king was assisted to his throne, and then walked slowly to stand on a platform just below the king. Rydia stood behind Cecil and Rosa, intrigued by what the dwarves had to say and more importantly, to learn some of what she had missed. It struck her as odd that even a step below, they still seemed to tower over the king and his retinue.

            Cecil began the exchange, his voiced strained, sounding every bit the exhaustion that Rydia felt. “Forgive us, your majesty, but Golbez escaped with the crystal despite our efforts to stop him.”

            Distressed murmurs filled the room and Rydia looked around to see a whole contingent of dwarves standing in the shadows.

The king stroked his orange whiskery beard, a sharp contrast with his face. “There was little any of us could have done to stop that, it seems. With the force he used against us on all fronts, we were lucky that his flying contraptions pulled back when they did or none of us would be standing at all,” the king admitted with a heavy sigh. “But now only one Crystal remains, and we must guard it with our lives.”

“Where is the final one hidden?” Rosa asked, hurried.

“Someplace safe,” the king replied vaguely. “Golbez left in search of that location according to our scouts, but have no fear. The entrance is warded, and cannot be breached without the proper key. For now, I do not feel it is necessary to involve you in such secrets of the dwarven court. However, if you are so set on retrieving your Upperworld crystals, I believe I may have a favor to ask of you.”

Was it Rydia’s imagination, or did the dwarf king look smug?

“It is our fault your Crystal was taken. If there is anything we can do to be of aid, we will most certainly cooperate,” Cecil offered.

“Golbez makes for the last Crystal, that much is obvious. This is the opportune moment for us to turn the tables. While he is chasing after the final Crystal, you can enter the Tower of Babil and reclaim the other seven!” he announced, erupting off of his throne like a volcano no longer dormant.

            “The Tower of Babil?” Kain was incredulous.

“You would have us march into the enemy’s own fortress!?” Yang seconded.

“Yes—while our tanks create a diversion. The enemy’s forces will be drawn out to fight. While they are occupied, you will have a chance to slip in and retrieve the Crystals. Wait until Golbez returns, and that chance is lost.”

Silence reined the entire room. Humans and dwarves alike cast worried glances about, waiting.

“What do you think?” Kain directed his question at Cecil.

“About walking willingly into an enemy stronghold?” Rydia reinforced, glancing at Cecil and the dwarf king beyond.

“It would be dangerous, to be certain,” Rosa acknowledged.

“But to risk nothing is to gain nothing,” Yang added, stepping toward the center of the group.

Kain released an exasperated sigh. “King Giott speaks true. We must act now, while Golbez is away, if we are to act at all.”

Cecil turned and looked each of his companions in the eyes. Kain’s dubious scowl, Rydia’s hesitant resolve, Rosa’s resigned expression, and Yang’s eagerness. “Very well,” Cecil finally answered, looking at the king. “We will do as you ask.”

            With the king’s following response, one would never have guessed at the tension hanging on the air just a moment before.          




“Excellent! We will be in preparation during the small hours. Speak to me again in the long hours to discuss the rest of the battle plan, and in the meantime, please find rest in our dormitories. There are craftsmen who will have equipment better suited to the heat of the magma than the ones in which you arrived, feel free to browse through their wares. I’ve alerted the guard that you are to be given access to the castle’s services.”

He nodded them out of his presence, and clearly dismissed, they began to file out, until he spoke again and stalled them.

“And strange visitors! I wish you the best of luck!”

 

            They left the throne room crestfallen but purposeful. They were going to the tower—sneaking in under Golbez’s nose! The very thought put a nervous bounce in Rydia’s step.  

            “Let’s find these dormitories,” Cecil suggested and Rydia noticed Rosa’s normally radiant face held an ashen palor.

            “You need beds?” a dwarf asked, appearing at their sides instantly. “Come this way. We’ll take care of you until you leave. After all, our king’s plan rests in your hands.”

            “Thank you,” Cecil replied, taking Rosa’s arm and linking it with his own. Rydia smiled to watch them, remembering nights around campfires long ago when they would speak in gentle tones, sharing honest comfort in each other’s presence. It must feel like yesterday to them, Rydia reminded herself, not the years it had been for her.

            The dwarf led them through several corridors, and down a few elaborately laid staircases. There was a room on one floor with rows of wide beds, beds made of marble.

            “Marble beds!” Yang voiced his surprise, echoing Rydia’s thoughts.

            “They’re beautiful,” she concurred.

            “Aye! The dwarves are handy with all things under the earth. Anything else would catch fire!” the dwarf attendant assured them.

            “He has a point,” Kain’s gruff voice intoned from the back.

            “Thank you,” Cecil quickly added. “We are grateful.”

            “Do you require anything else?” the dwarf asked.

            “No, I think we’ll just rest for now.”

            “If you change your mind, someone will be in the next room.”

            Everyone nodded, Yang bowed, and the dwarf left them.

            Cecil sighed and turned his attention to the beds, looking for a place to set down Rosa.

        “They’re so short,” Rydia pointed out, walking between the beds. Yang smiled at her assessment and raised a hand to his chin. “Can we push them together?”    




            “They’re certainly wide enough,” Rydia giggled.

            “Here, help me move this one,” Yang said, stepping up to a bed near the corner and budging it toward another one. Rydia attempted to push her end, but it barely inched across the floor, and when she strained at an angle almost parallel with the floor, Cecil decided to take action.

            “Kain, can you take her?” Cecil asked, resting Rosa in his arms before taking Rydia’s place and pushing the bed. Rydia stood back and took the opportunity to place a speculative look on Kain, uncomfortable with the whole arrangement. She noticed with some surprise that he seemed uneasy as well, as if he was holding a fragile object. Just what had happened to make him join Cecil, she wondered. There were so many things she’d missed.

            “There we go!” Cecil’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she saw the bed had been scooted into place. Kain stepped forward with an already sleeping Rosa and eased her onto the soft mattress. Cecil adjusted a pillow for her head and covered her with a blanket.

            The men stood back and looked at the other beds.

            “Three beds for five of us,” Yang observed.

            “I’ll sleep on the floor,” Kain announced without preamble.

            Relief filled Rydia at those words and she cast brief glances at everyone else to gauge their reactions. No one else seemed phased. Were they so easy with Kain’s presence?

            No one said anything of Cecil sharing a bed with Rosa, Yang took one bed, and Rydia took the last, sitting down on a sturdy mattress filled with an unknown, but soft, material. She was exhausted and covered in grime. Not a good combination.

            Suddenly the thought of a bath was more appealing than ever. Now that she thought of it, the last bath she’d had had been in the Feymarch. It seemed so long ago, almost like a dream. The lamps had been dimmed, Rydia hadn’t noticed by whom, but she figured that by now, most of the others would be sleeping.

            She settled down onto the mattress but her eyes wouldn’t stay closed for more than a few seconds at a time. She looked around again, and saw Yang meditating, always serene. She wished to speak to him, but she didn’t want to wake the others and it could wait until tomorrow. She could already see the delight at her return in his eyes and for now that was all she needed.

            But she wanted to speak to Cecil most of all. She had so much to ask. Images she’d seen through Asura’s spell had not been enough to ease her curiosity at what her friends had endured. She thought over pieces of conversation that she wanted to bring up to Cecil, but they made her impatient and restless. Finally she sat up and dangled her legs over the edge of the bed. A walk, that’s what she needed. She strode out of the chamber and into the foyer with large stone counters for purchasing goods. There was one dwarf there, sorting shelves of inventory. Potions and ethers, odds and ends, dried herbs she recognized from houses in the Feymarch. How did they get such things, she wondered.

            The dwarf looked up when it sensed Rydia’s eyes upon it.

            “What can-uh do fer you?” the woman—man? asked.

            Rydia smoothed her soiled green robes. “Nothing, thank you. I just need a place to think.”

            The dwarf grunted and returned to work, bundling up potions and other palliatives. Rydia took the opportunity to slip past and search for a stairway that would lead her up to the top of the castle, and found one to her satisfaction curving up in a spiral.

            Dwarves were hustling about the parapets when she arrived, effecting repairs to much of the fortifications. She found an undisturbed corner and watched with casual interest.

            They were preparing for another siege, to battle the tower. Rydia looked around, trying to see the tower, but saw nothing other than the dark plateaus west of the castle.

            She gazed at them silently, and turned only when she heard a heavy door open and close nearby. Cecil’s tall lean form stepped through, his gray eyes shining. He cut such a different figure than he did in his heavy dark armor. Rydia still hadn’t adjusted to the difference. Had he followed her here?

            She turned toward him with her arms folded across her chest.

            “You can’t see it from here,” she pointed out, inclining her head toward the northwest.

            “See what?” he asked.

He came and stood beside her, staring westward as well. “I never thought it would come down to this—invading through the enemy’s front door.”

            She looked at him, then at the dwarves atop the castle walls with them. “Do you really think this plan will work?”

            “I’d like to think so. We cannot allow Golbez to continue to abuse power. I can’t let another kingdom fall.”

            Rydia watched him as he said those words—strong, determined, but mournful. “You are doing the best you can, Cecil.”

            He looked down at her and smiled. “Now you’re the one giving me advice. The times have changed.”

            Rydia smiled as well. “You were teaching me about the world and how to survive in it back then. I wouldn’t say much has changed.”

            “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in this…” he said resignedly.

            “It wasn’t your fault. The war would have come to my village by your hand or someone else’s. I was lucky to survive and be able to travel with you, Cecil.”

            “And now you’ve grown up,” he added quietly.

            She didn’t say anything for a while and then looked at him again. “Is it strange for you?” she asked.

            He raised a brow. “It is strange to see you grown up, after only a few months.”

            “It’s strange for me to see you as a paladin,” she said grinning. “You’re different now—lighter.”

            “Lighter?” he chuckled. “Must be all that armor I shed.”

“Not just that,” Rydia hastily added. “You don’t seem as sad now either.”

Cecil considered her thoughtfully. “Have you really grown up? Has it really been years for you, or did your body age and your mind stayed the same?”

            “It’s been ten years for me, Cecil.”

            “Ten years,” Cecil murmured. “I thought for sure, Leviathan had killed you. I thought you were dead.”

            “I know,” Rydia answered, a twinkle in her eye. “Leviathan had business with me, and the rest of you were caught up in it as well.”

            “He attacked us on purpose?”

            “Some things…” Rydia began, “have a way of working themselves out.”

            “Well, old mother,” Cecil replied, “Those ten years have aged you much.”

            Rydia smiled briefly. “How long has it really been?”

            Cecil sobered. “It’s been six months.”

            “Six months? That’s it?”

            “It’s felt like longer.”

            Rydia paused and fidgeted her hands together. “You and Yang are here, but what about Edward? Where is he, didn’t he go with you?”

            “Edward is recovering—wait, you knew that he was alive?”

            Rydia sported a sheepish grin. “It’s a long story.”

            “I hope to hear about it,” Cecil encouraged.

            “If it’s alright with you, I’d rather wait until I can tell everyone at once.”

            “I look forward to it,” he said and paused. “Why don’t we return to the dormitories and continue our conversation in the morning, whatever morning looks like in this place.”

            Cecil turned to leave, but Rydia hung behind.

            “What is it?” he asked.

            “Cecil…” she began, fidgeting again, “do you…trust Kain?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “He tried to kill you, he kidnapped Rosa, and now he’s traveling with you. Is it really alright with you?”

            Cecil took a few steps toward her, his expression softening. “Rydia…he wasn’t in control of his actions. Golbez held him under a spell.”

            His eyes were so genuine that Rydia was worried for him. Cecil was a trusting person at heart, but she didn’t know if his trust was well placed in this instance. “Be careful,” she warned, careful to leave out that to be under that kind of spell, it required a weakness to exploit—a weakness that might become a problem again. Hopefully the dragoon had really dealt with his demons, for Cecil’s sake.

            “Let’s go back to the others,” Cecil suggested again.

            Rydia finally nodded, and they left the ramparts for the cooler castle interior. They returned to the dwarven equivalent of an inn and each returned to their respective beds.

            Rydia snuggled into the cool sheets and settled down, feeling more at ease than she had earlier. She’d said some of what she’d wanted to, but there were still questions that wanted to be answered. Tomorrow she’d speak with the rest of them, except Kain of course. She had no desire to speak to the dragoon, and the way he avoided her, she suspected he didn’t want to speak to her either. She would worry about how to deal with him in the morning and on the journey to the tower. Her body didn’t have the energy for those kinds of thoughts, and she closed her eyes, this time to a deep and soothing slumber.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The morning arrived too soon. Rydia was still tired, but the ache of the previous day’s battle had somewhat abated.

            When she drew the covers away from her face she noticed that Cecil was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Kain. Rosa remained in her bed, golden hair splayed out around her like a halo, but Yang was up and gathering his things, few that they were. His eyes caught hers.

            “Good morning,” he said; his deep voice a comforting sound.

            “Good morning,” she groggily replied.

            He smiled and inclined his head toward the door. “Cecil left earlier to speak to the king and to ask about supplies.”

            Rydia nodded absently and then pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at Yang with a glint in her eye. Seeming to understand, Yang stopped what he was doing and smiled again, more broadly.

            “I know that look. What is it, Rydia?”

            She paused, collecting her thoughts. “What…what happened while I was gone?”

            To this Yang chuckled.

            “What?” she insisted.

            “You’re asking _me_ when you’re the one who came back ten years older.”

            “You don’t seem very surprised, either,” Rydia said, somewhat disappointed.

            “Everyone else survived Leviathan’s attack. I only assumed it would be a matter of time before you appeared again.”

            “You didn’t think I was dead?”

            Yang made a thoughtful expression. “I decided you had to be alive after our travels to Troia.”

            “Why’s that?”

            “Edward survived,” he wryly replied.

            Rydia was puzzled, but then grinned wickedly. “Ah.”

            Yang finished gathering his things and then sat on his bed. “It’s been such a strange six months.”

            “I missed all of you,” Rydia confided. “It’s been a long time for me.”

            “Was it really ten years?”

            Rydia nodded.

            “Were they kind to you?”

            Rydia smiled faintly, thinking of Ramuh, Shiva, Black, and the others. “They were.”

            Yang visibly relaxed. “I’m glad, very glad.”

            Rydia’s smile widened and at that moment Rosa stirred from her bed. Even covered in grime, soot, and her golden hair sticking up in several directions, she still looked like a goddess—a rumpled goddess, granted, but a goddess nonetheless.

            “Good morning,” Rydia chimed.

            Rosa groaned and mumbled a good morning of her own. She didn’t speak like a goddess, Rydia mused.

            Rosa looked around bewildered. “Where’s Cecil?”

            Yang hooked a thumb in the direction of the doorway. “Meeting with royalty,” he answered.

            “Oh, I see.” Rosa sat up straighter and ran a hand through tangled hair.

            “I think the dwarves have food prepared in the other room,” Yang added after a while.

            Rydia made a face. “What kind of food do you think they eat?”

            “I couldn’t say, but I haven’t been able to smell anything coming from that direction.”

            “That doesn’t bode well,” Rosa commented tiredly, and then in one swift movement, shifted her entire body toward Rydia, as if she had grand things to discuss. All that came out of her mouth, however, was: “Rydia!”

            Rydia stared at the other woman expectantly, but Rosa just stared at her without saying anything for several moments. And then everything came out at once.

            “Rydia you have to tell me what happened to you! Where did you live? Who taught you magic? Have you really forgotten white magic? Were they good to you?”

            Rydia nervously smiled at Rosa and tried to think of where to start, when Yang interrupted again. “Rosa, I think it might be too early in the day for that many questions,” he said.

            Rosa’s disappointment was distinctly visible.

            “Don’t worry, Rosa, you’ll hear about it soon enough,” Rydia assured the other woman.

            “It’s just…when you weren’t with Cecil when he rescued me…and after I heard about what happened. Rydia, I…”

            “I was alright, Rosa. I’m sorry I worried you,” Rydia quickly added.

            “I’m so happy you’re alive, Rydia,” Rosa said a bit tearfully.

            Silence fell upon the room until Yang once again decided to intervene. “Why don’t we eat something and find Cecil?”

            Rydia watched Yang leave the room and rose to follow him. Rosa followed a bit more slowly, combing fingers through her hair in an effort to flatten it. They entered the adjacent room for “breakfast” and found a stone pot filled with some form of colorless odorless soup waiting for them. Rydia’s stomach considered retreating back into bed. This did not look appetizing.

            It was Yang who braved the unknown. He took a small bowl and dipped it into the soupy mixture, the consistency of which resembled sodden oats, or bread that had soaked too long and become completely liquid. If he was skeptical, Yang let nothing of it be seen on his face and took a sip. Rydia watched as if waiting for him to turn into a frog, but he merely twitched his mustache back and forth and hummed in an undecided fashion.

            “It’s…unique,” he conceded.

            Rydia took a bowl next and did exactly as Yang had done. She stared at it timidly before taking a gulp. It slid down her throat like a slug, tasted like mud, and the instant it hit her stomach, it decided retreat was no longer an option, but rather that mutiny was the next order of business. She had to stop herself from retching and turned away, shutting her eyes tightly.

            Right around the time she was trying to convince herself to breathe again, she was distracted by Rosa’s clear voice.

            “Cecil, you’re back.”

Rydia opened her eyes and saw Cecil standing in the doorway of the room with Kain directly behind him.

            Her stomach did a flip flop at the duality of the presences in front of her, the holy paladin, and the turncoat whose true allegiance she’d not yet decided. Cecil approached the table and looked at each of them.

            “I’ve spoken with the king. His forces have already begun moving toward the Tower, and we will follow them. The journey looks to take several days.”

            “Has Cid fixed the airship?” Yang asked, sounding hopeful.

            Cecil shook his head. “He said it would be quite some time before he obtained the right materials.”

            “Cid?” Rydia asked, trying to ignore her stomach.

            Cecil looked at her. “I keep forgetting you never met Cid,” he muttered.

            “Baron’s engineer,” Kain supplied from his place behind Cecil. “He came with us, but is busy fixing the ship that was damaged in enemy crossfire.”

            Rydia’s gaze flitted in his direction long enough to nod and acknowledge the information before she returned her eyes to a more comfortable face.

            “That’s a long way to walk in this heat,” Rosa admitted with a sigh, toying with the bowl in her hand and the consistency of the soup in the pot.

            “The king insisted that even if we were to have use of the ship, it would only attract the enemy’s attention to our presence. The point of this mission is to be as invisible as possible,” Cecil explained.

            “What about equipment?” Yang asked.

            “The armory is on the other side of the castle. The gear there should be more heat resistant,” Kain added, speaking more to Cecil than to anyone else.

            “We can go now, unless you planned on eating something,” Yang suggested.

            Cecil looked at the food and made a suspect face. “I’d rather not. I am thankful to the dwarves for their hospitality, but their food leaves much to be desired. I think I still have food from Agart in one of the satchels.”

            Rydia almost jumped for joy.

            “I have no problem with visiting the armory,” Rosa announced, setting down her bowl.

            “Neither do I,” Yang added.

            Cecil turned to Kain. “You know where it is,” he said, gesturing at the door. “I was in meetings this morning and didn’t have a chance to look around.”

            Kain took his cue, nodded, and returned to the door from where he and Cecil had entered. Rydia followed with Rosa and Yang in tow.

            This time as they crossed the castle, Rydia noticed the width of the hallways and staircases. Everything was wide, but fairly squat. Cecil and Kain had to duck to fit under several doorframes. Carpets and tapestries were rare; but etchings, engravings, and jeweled insets adorned the walls and floors in their place. The castle practically glittered. From the look on Rosa’s face, it seemed she hadn’t had time to admire the castle either without threat of impending danger.

            “It’s through here,” Kain spoke at the head of the line.

            They stepped through another doorway and entered a large room with several tables, and many rows of weapons on racks. Two dwarves were in the room; one sharpening a sword, and the other polishing a breastplate of armor. Rydia stared at the armaments in surprise, more at the amount of them than the quality. It took a moment to realize that several of the swords hanging on the walls were glowing with heat.

            Cecil walked to the dwarf polishing a suit of armor. The plating glimmered in the candles of the room, but would dwarf armor fit full sized humans?

            Cecil began asking after prices. There was some dispute over whether or not armor could be modified, but Rydia didn’t pay much attention to the outfitting of the men. She took a moment to walk around the room, looking at weapons and rings and amulets that were all masterfully crafted by the metal smiths among the dwarves. She recognized some of them from her time in the Feymarch, marveling at the extent of materials that had found their way into the hidden realms of the Eidolons. She tried on one of the rings with runes carved into the band. It was small, as if made for a child, and it felt good on her finger.

            “It suits you,” Rosa said in her ear.

            Rydia spun to see Rosa studying the small wares beside her, inspecting each piece as if they were jewels.

            “I wonder what the engravings mean,” Rosa murmured as she held a ring up to the light and squinted at the inscription.

            Rydia eyed the other woman and considered asking her one of the many things she’d been curious about in the past several years. She had waited ten years to ask a thousand questions, and now that she was with them, among them, she had fallen into an old but familiar routine that she was afraid to interrupt, lest she lose momentum. Would Rosa want her to dredge up the past? Would she want to be reminded of her time in captivity? What did _she_ think of Kain? Instead Rydia thought of something else, returning her gaze to the ring on her finger.

            “There were many rings like this in the Feymarch. The dwarves’ wares have traveled far,” she said, hoping to start some kind of conversation.

            “They have uses for items such as these in the Feymarch?” Rosa asked, her stare intense.

            “Well they live more or less as humans do,” Rydia elaborated, trying to figure out all of a sudden how to explain how the Eidolons lived their daily lives.

            “Like humans? Don’t they set their houses on fire or flood the streets with their magic?”

            Rydia stifled a giggle, but only barely managed to suppress it. “They can wear the guises of humans when they choose to, it helps contain their magic, but the whole realm is made of magic and so they have greater control over their own powers there.”

            Rosa looked at the flame of a candle resting in a sconce on the wall and seemed to be looking somewhere farther away. “I’ve never seen such raw power unleashed all at once,” she admitted. “The Eidolons you summoned, they were powerful indeed.”

            “They were enraged,” Rydia began, “Because Golbez hasn’t just been attacking humans, he’s tried his hand at the Eidolons as well. Many lives were lost, and they sought revenge. They aren’t normally that angry…”

            “Was it strange being the only human among them?”

            The question took Rydia aback. It had been so long since she’d thought of it as anything but normal to be the only human in the Feymarch. But it hadn’t always been that way…she remembered trying to escape, being told that she wouldn’t see anyone she had known for at least ten years, and that she was destined to take on the mantle of high summoner as the last of her people. It had been terrifying, startling, angering. She had even tried to escape, but then she remembered that if it hadn’t been for Black and Ramuh, she would still have felt like a prisoner.

            “It was strange and difficult at first,” she admitted. “They didn’t trust me, I didn’t trust them. It was scary being on my own, but it got better. It took years for me to earn the trust of some, but by the time I left, I learned so much about all of them. Their hurts, their joys, and their dreams. They allowed me to become part of their world for a while, and I’m truly grateful for that. Now it’s my turn to fight on their behalf.”

            “Rydia…”

            “I’m not afraid of fire anymore—well, not afraid to use it when I have to, and I will, so long as I can protect innocent people. I returned to fight beside you because it’s the best way to end the war. You need a summoner, and I’m the only one left. I’m not a child anymore, and I intend to make myself useful!” Rydia spouted out at once.

            When Rosa stared at her mutely, did Rydia stop to realize just how out of breath she was from nearly shouting. She suddenly felt very foolish.

            Rosa smiled then, and it was like a sunbeam had lit the room brighter than any of the metal finery. “You always did have a lot of spirit,” she chuckled quietly. “That’s what I always loved about you, Rydia.”

            Rydia’s embarrassment faded and a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.

            Then, realizing that the ring was still on her finger, she raised her hand and speculatively asked, “Do you think we should buy these?”

            “Only if their use outweighs their decoration,” Rosa acknowledged.

            Rydia craned her neck to look past Rosa. Cecil and Kain were adjusting pieces of armor while the dwarves hovered around them, making adjustments of their own and holding up additional pieces of metal to cover gaps left in the plating. It looked like they were filling in pieces of a puzzle, and when plates fit, the dwarves took them back to their worktables and hammered holes into them in order to fit rings that would join all of the pieces together. A lot of work went into a suit of armor…

            Rosa turned to look as well. “I much prefer that armor,” she said wistfully.

            Rydia looked up at Rosa speculatively. “You really do get a better glimpse of his features without that dark mask,” she admitted playfully.

            Rosa spun to look at her in shock. “Are you teasing me, Rydia?”

            Rydia grinned. “The two of you do go well together, there’s no use hiding it.”

            Rosa smiled and looked at Cecil again. “There were so many times I never thought I would see him again…”

            Rydia waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t she decided to ask, “Were you afraid?”

            “I wasn’t really thinking of myself—it was Cecil for whom I worried.”

            Rydia looked at Cecil and Kain and lowered her voice. “What about Kain?”

            Rosa’s expression darkened a bit, even though she tried to hide it. “He was different from his usual self. It was as if all of his darkest thoughts had been brought to the surface. I barely recognized him. He wasn’t…altogether unkind to me, but I was so relieved when he came to his senses again.”

            “When he came to his senses?”

            “Tellah—that was his name. Edward had spoken of him, and he traveled with the rest of you. He challenged Golbez with a spell, and the force of it broke Golbez’s control over Kain’s mind.”

            Rydia took in a sharp breath and felt her throat constrict. “Tellah…when he cast…”

            “Meteo,” they both said in unison.

            The surprise and suspicion on Rosa’s face was immediate. “How did you know?” she whispered.

            Rydia looked into Rosa’s blue eyes. “I saw it happen—in a dream. It’s hard to explain it even now. I just…I saw it and I knew what he had done. I didn’t know that it had anything to do with Kain, but it was enough to send shockwaves to the Feymarch.”

            “It was a very brave and foolish thing he did…” Rosa said sadly.

            “He wanted to avenge his daughter,” Rydia continued. “I just wish…I could at least have said goodbye.”

            Rosa smiled faintly down at her. “I think in some way he must have known you were watching.”

            Rydia had never thought of it that way before, but thinking that she might have been of some comfort to him at his end, took away some of the sting of his passing.

            “We’ll take these,” she heard Cecil announce to the dwarf standing beside him, who was admiring the alterations done to the armor. Both Cecil and Kain had  been outfitted in the armor that glowed with an inner fire, and even though it looked crude, Rydia had no doubt it was serviceable. Her thoughts returned to the current mission and more immediate concerns.

            “I think this ring will suit me just fine,” she said to herself. “Why don’t we finish gathering supplies?” she suggested to Rosa.

            “I agree,” the other woman replied. “We have a long way to travel, and we’re already behind.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The dwarves made quick work of preparing armor for the men, and after Cecil and Kain had been assisted into their new armor, the group proceeded to other parts of the castle to gather supplies and information. They had arrived at what seemed to be the general goods store, and it had already been quite some time since they'd arrived. Rydia hoped Rosa would hurry things up. The woman had spent the last hour purchasing potions, ethers, and tinctures to distribute between their packs. Rydia stood nearby simply out of courtesy, but her nerves demanded that they start moving. Even Cecil seemed to be wishing the same thing of Rosa as he stood near the doorway, his eyes boring into her back.

"Are we all set?" he asked, sounding weary.

"Just _wait_ ," Rosa nearly hissed by way of response.

Rydia shot him a sidelong glance that conveyed her sentiments exactly. Even Yang was grinning with his eyes closed, arms folded across his chest. Rydia didn't give two bits about what Kain thought, and she determinedly avoided sweeping her gaze in his direction.

"I think that's everything," Rosa commented, looking everything over for good measure.

 _At last!_ Rydia's impatient mind rejoiced.

"I need everyone's packs," Rosa said, turning to look at everyone.

Rydia began chewing on the inside of her cheek. They had to _leave._ Golbez was away from his tower, and if they waited too long, he was going to be there waiting for them by the time they left the dwarf stronghold. A few hours might not make much difference, she thought reluctantly, but they sure felt that way.

While Rosa rifled through the packs and stuck things into corners Rydia hadn't known previously existed, Cecil began poring over a map the king had given him. Rydia walked to his side and peered at it as well. There were sketches of plateaus for miles upon miles and a solitary road that serpentined between them. It was a map only of this continent, she gathered. There were no accounts of the magma seas or how far away the Feymarch lay.

"At least we're traveling well inland," Cecil admitted.

"Is it really that far of a distance?" Rydia asked, perplexed by the map's legend. "What exactly is a furlong?"

Cecil just shook his head. "The words they use down here are truly…"

"We're all set!" Rosa happily announced, wiping her hands off on her robes as if they were covered in dust.

Cecil and Rydia looked up. Rosa held out two packs, and Rydia stepped forward and claimed her own. She swung it between her shoulder blades and was surprised to find how heavy it was.

"Are we really leaving this time?" Rydia asked suspiciously, with a touch of heat in her voice. She was tired of running only to stand still. It was the perfect recipe for losing momentum and she was tired of doing that, too.

"We're really leaving this time," Rosa confirmed.

"Fantastic!" Cecil announced, sweeping out of the room before Rosa even had time to pull an expression. Yang followed and then Kain, but Rydia hung back apprehensively; she had no desire to walk that close to the dragoon, so she waited until Rosa had vacated the room before she followed suit.

They walked through a long room that was littered with scrolls and maps, and Rydia gazed around curiously until she bumped into Rosa who had stopped unexpectedly.

They had just entered an anteroom, and standing in the center was a great stone drum, carved with runes and glowing with a peculiar light. "What do you think this is?" Cecil asked, inspecting the drum that held a shining liquid. Yang stepped toward him and peered in as well.

"I don't know; I've never seen its like."

"It looks like elixir," Rosa replied, a little awed.

"Elixir?" Rydia asked. "What's it doing sitting out like this?"

"I believe I might be able ta explain," a dwarf guard interrupted, walking up to them. "We keep this here fer our soldiers who've just 'turned from battle. The heat can a'times be too much fer us dwarves. Boosts morale and strengthens the body. Please, take uh sip and be blessed of the gods 'fore ya venture into peril."

"We can't just take this; surely your soldiers need this more than we do!" Cecil protested.

"'Tis a sign of goodwill," the dwarf replied. "Drink an' be 'ealed of whatever maladies sleep couldna' cure."

Rosa bowed deeply. "Thank you," she said, slowly stepping forward, and dipping her hands into the sapphire colored liquid. With reverence, she drew it to her lips and swallowed. Rydia watched as the others did the same, and then it was finally her turn. It had the taste of honey and alighted on her tongue with a strange tingle. She felt the hurts of battle lifted from her bones and muscles. Hurts she hadn't even been aware of dissipated like a bad dream.

"May the gods be with ye," the dwarf said, saluting them.

Rosa smiled her usual warm smile as they proceeded to the door. It was sturdy, and like everything else in the dwarf castle, made of stone. It took two more dwarves to open it. It slid open on heavy hinges and the surge of heat immediately covered Rydia in a fine sheen of sweat.

"The heat of this land is unbelievable," Kain muttered ahead of her.

She couldn't help but agree with him as the heat stung her eyes.

"The map said to go in which direction?" Rosa asked.

"West," Cecil answered, gesturing to the right.

"Let's get this over with," Yang said decidedly, setting off across the porous ground.

The rest of them followed, but the pace was not brisk. The heat sapped their strength quickly and they had to stop for water every mile or so. It hadn't been a few hours before Rosa expressed her concerns over the supply of water the dwarves had given them.

"How can they live on so little?" Yang wondered aloud.

"I have no idea, but if they thought this would last us, they were sorely mistaken," Rosa responded, sounding distressed.

Rydia lifted her canteen to gauge how much of the life giving liquid she had left, and found it very light indeed. She sighed, swiping a drenched lock of green hair out of her face. She'd never used it in this capacity before, but maybe…

Rydia began to chant softly to herself, recalling the blizzara spell; but as she chanted, she changed the spell's construction. She hoped it worked as she spoke the final word and felt the pull of magic on her spirit. From one outstretched hand, a cloud of ice formed and began to melt instantly. It dripped into her palm and down her arm to her elbow, but she smiled exultantly. Her plan had worked! She pulled the stopper from her canteen and allowed the water of her spell to drip into it, filling it completely.

She looked up to find the others staring at her.

"That's a useful skill to have, Rydia," Yang said with a nod.

Rydia grinned up at him. "I'm just happy it worked."

"Looks like we've found a solution to our water problem," Cecil commented, wiping the sweat from his eyes.

"Give me your canteens," Rydia requested, holding out a hand.

Rosa took hold of Cecil and Kain's canteens while Yang handed Rydia his own.

Rydia chanted again, drawing the power of the spell to her hand and allowing it to melt into the canteens. When she had finished, she returned the canteens to their owners.

"Let me know when you need me to re-fill them," Rydia mentioned.

"Thank you, Rydia," Rosa replied gratefully.

They continued walking through the sulfurous air that permeated the plains. They could see the glimmer of the magma sea to their west, but it was only a bright yellow shimmer from where they stood. It had only been half a day, but it felt like it had been several days since they set out on their journey.

By the time they decided to stop for the day, Cecil had marked off an eighth of their route from the map.

"We'll rest here for a few hours. I'll take first watch," he said, walking off to find a lookout point.

Rydia helped Rosa with gear while Yang surveyed a place for them to settle in. There were all sorts of nooks and crannies in the ground left behind by great machines that had churned up the rock. Some of the places were as deep as Rydia was tall and provided a good deal of shelter.

The crushed stone had turned to a fine powder, and Rydia was quite delighted at the prospect of sleeping on that rather than the angular and jagged stones. Sleeping mats were unrolled and laid upon the ground, and it was then that Rydia realized Kain had gone missing from their group again. Curious, she climbed out of the trench and found him speaking with Cecil. She was glad there was still a pack left above the trench with which she could busy herself while still being able to listen.

"…odd, Cecil, and you know it," Kain was saying.

"I've been wondering the same thing," Cecil admitted.

"The dwarves did warn us that the monsters here were made of sterner stuff. Perhaps they're made of cleverer stuff as well."

"I'll keep my eyes open," Cecil assured him.

"Wake me when it's my watch," Kain told him and turned to walk back to the camp.

Rydia quickly averted her eyes and pretended to be un-hitching a bed roll. She was surprised when Kain plucked the whole pack off the ground without warning. She looked up at him.

"Don't trouble yourself with this," he told her before jumping down into the trench.

Rydia could only gaze after him, before sparing a glance at Cecil. She walked over to him and then sat beside him.

"Give me your canteen," she said.

He looked at her and smiled. "You're worried I won't last the night?"

"Someone else has to help shoulder Rosa's burden," she said softly. "Now give me your canteen."

Cecil laughed and removed his canteen from the loop on his belt.

Rydia chanted and filled the vessel with water like she had done several times throughout the day.

"Thank you," he said.

"There's no reason you should die of thirst on first watch," she said with a smile, and then after a moment's consideration, "Do you think _we're_ being watched?"

"Watched?"

"We haven't been hassled the entire time we've been traveling. I heard a bit of what Kain said, and I agree. He was right about something else, too. Or the dwarves were, at any rate. The monsters here _are_ made of sterner stuff. They favor ambush and deception, and I can't be sure, but I've felt eyes on us for a while."

"Do you know from where?"

Rydia shook her head. "The heat is making it hard for my eyes to make sense of anything."

"Instinct, then."

"Instinct.," Rydia agreed.

Cecil released a long sigh. "I'll be fine, Rydia. Get some rest. You've used a lot of your power today and things are bound to get more interesting from here on."

"Good luck," she said while standing.

She hopped into the trench and found that Rosa had brought out some of their rationed food.

"Rydia!" Rosa exclaimed. "I wondered where you'd gotten off to."

"Just wanted to fill Cecil's canteen before we all got settled," she said, avoiding telling the other woman her fears that trouble might be looming.

"Eat something, you must be exhausted."

Rydia sat down with a sigh and examined the fare before her. Quickly remembering the unsavory experience of dwarf cooking, she gave Rosa a quick look. "This isn't…it's not…is it?"

Rosa laughed. "This is what's left of our stores from above ground," she assured her.

Rydia's second sigh was one of relief. "Above ground?" She picked up an unleavened loaf and just held it for a few minutes. "You have no idea how much I've missed food from above ground," she said before taking a bite and closing her eyes in ecstasy.

Everyone paused and looked at her, a bit stricken. Rydia missed this exchange until she opened her eyes and saw Rosa looking at her. "Amazing. Simply amazing."

"What is?" Rydia asked.

"I keep forgetting that it's been ten whole years..."

"Sometimes it feels the same for me. It's the little things," Rydia admitted, munching on her bread happily.

"So much has happened to all of us, that time seems to be distorted all around," Yang said after a few minutes' pause.

They all sat in quiet acknowledgement for a few minutes, eating the unleavened bread from the Above.

"We should try to sleep," Rosa said after a while. "I know it will be difficult to find any rest with this heat, but we have to try and conserve our strength."

"Agreed."

Rydia scooted to her bedroll and tried to settle down onto it. The heat was less on the sand than the rock and she tried to snuggle into the soft powder, seeking relief. She needed rest, needed to maintain her concentration. She knew the journey to the Tower would be perilous for more reasons than one. Something was coming—waiting. Perhaps the monsters were waiting for them to make a mistake or succumb to the heat. Either way, Rydia knew that when trouble came, she wanted to be ready…


	5. Chapter 5

The grinding of metal against metal woke Rydia with a start. She had developed a habit of snapping to attention at a moment's notice, and the first sight her eyes locked onto was Cecil standing directly in front of her with his sword drawn. He was shaking Rosa awake as Yang bounded out of the trench in which they had made camp. Rydia's mind immediately went to her routine. She grabbed her whip, a small pouch from within her pack, and pulled herself out of the trench as well.

The moment she emerged, she steeled her emotions, and drew from her years of training. Kain was standing some distance away, holding his ground against several rodents of extraordinarily unusual size while moths the stature of full grown men hovered above the ground.

"Yang! The right flank!" Cecil shouted.

Rydia had barely drawn near the battle when Yang sprinted off with claws in an offensive position. It had been a long time since she'd seen the martial art of the Monk, and she'd forgotten how powerful and deliberate each of his moves had been. He charged the right side, keeping his claws close to his chest—close enough for defense; close enough to lash out at a moment's notice. He leapt into the air with tremendous strength and lashed at the wings of one of the moths. He struck true, but the moth had the advantage of altitude and swept higher into the air before any real damage could occur.

Cecil covered Yang's retreat to the battle line, while Kain rushed forward with his spear. He leveled the long weapon against the rodents, whose hides were covered in stone or metal, Rydia couldn't tell which. They had the appearance of porcupines, but these had learned to survive in the heat and protect themselves from who knows what kinds of predators. They also had the advantage of speed. Kain's spear struck empty air as one of the rodents dodged and wheeled backwards, releasing a barrage of sharp spines in all directions.

There were too many to dodge, and Rydia braced herself for the stinging pain, only to find that by the time the spines reached her, they had been slowed to an ineffectual speed by a glowing green barrier. She glanced to her left and saw Rosa standing on the line, chanting the words to the Protection Charm. Words she had once known. Words she had forgotten. The sudden shock of that realization lost her a moment's concentration.

"Rydia, keep them busy!" Rosa shouted back, as if she had read the Summoner's mind.

Rydia's attention returned to the task at hand. She may not know the Protection Charm, but she had other skills… She quickly analyzed their opponents and made a decision. Blizzara would be her ally for this battle. Creatures that were prepared to deal with heat wouldn't fare well against winter's chill. She began the incantation, ignoring the slashing and hacking of blades directly before her. She released the spell, blanketing the entire area with a layer of ice.

"SHATTER!" she shouted, raising a hand. The ice of the spell rose up, mimicking her hand, and engulfed everything on the battlefield in a crystalline coffin before shattering and sending frozen shrapnel through the air.

All of the creatures shuddered and fell to the ground. None of them were dead, but several were critically wounded. The moths especially, as their wings were tattered and torn by the ice. Yang made quick work of them, but the rodents took more effort. The twang of a bow string resonated, followed by the dull thud as an arrow shaft embedded itself into the body of one of them, ending its life. Kain finished one of the last with a quick jump into the air and a plunge of his spear through the rodent's body. In the end, seven foes lay dead on the ground.

Cecil wiped blood off of his blade as Kain retrieved his spear from the corpse of his last kill. It was in the aftermath of the battle that Rydia realized how efficient everyone had become at the art of battle. There was no hesitation, there were no second-guesses. All that existed in the face of a new threat was stead-fast resolve.

"Let me see your arm," Rosa was saying to Cecil, prying at his armguard where blood had seeped through.

"Must have found a hole in the plating," Cecil muttered, wincing as Rosa's deft fingers found a gash in his forearm.

Rosa chanted the Cure Spell and a healing light spread from her fingertips into the wound, knitting the flesh back together.

"Kain!" the white mage called out, turning in his direction. "I know you were hit. How badly are you injured?"

"It's just a scratch," he called back gruffly, "go see about the others."

Rosa's eyes lingered on the dragoon for a moment before she turned her attention to Yang and Rydia. Fortunately for all of them, injuries had been few.

"They finally made their move," Rydia said with hands on her hips.

"They wanted to catch us off-guard. I don't think they'll be holding back any longer," Cecil agreed.

"I had thought the road to Golbez's fortress was too quiet for comfort," Yang added, wiping gore from his claws. "At least we know what to expect from here out."

Rosa sighed, wiping sweat from her brow. "The question is whether or not we can withstand the journey. If we can't rest, we'll succumb to exhaustion long before battle claims us."

"I'm surprised none of you have voiced the question as to why the Dwarf's forces advanced and left us to walk behind them. Surely they could have stowed us aboard one of their tanks," Kain said darkly, walking past them on his way to the trench.

Cecil sheathed his sword and followed his friend. "I'm under the impression that this is a test. To prove that we're as trustworthy as we claim."

"I still think it's foolishness," Kain countered. "All this walking in the heat just to prove our worthiness? Do you think Golbez will wait long enough for us to make demonstrations of loyalty to every nation on the Earth?"

Rydia glared at the back of the Dragoon, wondering if she was seeing his true nature spilling over.

"If what you said about the Dark Crystals was true, it will take Golbez some time to find the last. In the meantime, we have a task to perform, and all we can do is bear with it," Cecil said resolutely.

"Do we continue moving?" Yang asked.

"The scent of death will draw others to this place," Rosa pointed out. "We don't have much choice."

"Gather the gear," Cecil instructed. "We'll keep moving until we reach the plateaus."

Rydia did as she was told, rolling her bedding, and re-packing her equipment. She was still tired, but the adrenaline of battle had given her a renewed interest in moving onward. That, and the threat she had perceived, the eyes that she'd felt on them for some time, hadn't left. Something was still lurking in the magma plains that she couldn't see, and it was still waiting for its chance to strike.

When everyone had gathered their supplies, the journey resumed. There was an urgency to their footsteps now that had been lacking before. The heat was as stifling as ever, but Cecil had set a course, and they would reach it as quickly as possible.

Rydia filled canteens again and again, and she even became more creative with the Blizzara spell, casting it upon the ground in front of them so that for even a few minutes, they could walk across a cold surface before it melted into hot steam.

They had walked for many "furlongs", or what Rydia estimated to be several miles, when Yang halted and held up one hand. The rest of them halted as well, gazing at the Monk expectantly. No one spoke. Then Yang pointed left and unbuckled the claws from his belt, sliding the metal contraptions onto his hands. Cecil drew his sword, Rosa, her bow, and Kain, unstrapped his spear from his pack. They formed a line, and Rosa began chanting the Protection Charm in anticipation of any attacks that might come. Rydia scanned the uneven landscape for signs of what Yang had discovered, but there were too many uneven places on the ground, and mirages kept her from seeing things true.

All of a sudden, the ground began to shift and move, and stones were hurled in the direction of the group. Rydia squinted, but still couldn't find the enemy. _Where are they?_ She thought with frustration.

Then they appeared—a dozen impish creatures. They resembled their Upperworld kin, but for the tanned hides and enormous teeth. In their hands they wielded crude curved blades and they wore the skins of other creatures as clothing. They charged, weapons raised. They were _fast_!

Rosa fired an arrow but missed, and her arrow skittered across stone. Rydia snapped her whip, and managed to graze one of them on the leg before it charged headlong toward Cecil's sword. The imp's life ended in a shower of blood and limp limbs, filling her with both disgust and dismay. The imps gave no thought to strategy, to self-preservation, they simply wished to overwhelm by sheer numbers. Cecil hacked and stabbed and Rosa sought to keep the imps away from her with the frame of her bow, but the creatures flailed their weapons in all directions. Like insect bites they were easy to ignore one or two at a time, but insufferable when multiplied. Cecil and Kain's armor was sufficient to block most of the blows, but everyone else was not similarly armed. Only agility and distance offered any protection. Yang kicked several of them back, and Rydia took a quick chance, chanting the Thunder spell. She released a small burst of lightning into the crowd of creatures. It was enough to startle them and immobilize them for a moment.

"Fall back!" Rydia shouted. The entire group heeded her suggested and gained some ground before the imps regained their senses.

Out of them all, only Yang's skills were truly suited for this rabble. With a few feet added distance, Cecil was finally able to swing his sword with any efficiency, and Kain employed his spear like a skewer, driving into the enemy and striking several at a time; but it was Yang who did the most damage. His claws tore into the small human-like beings with deadly efficiency. He wasn't hindered by close-combat and he didn't require much space between himself and his enemy to execute a few jabs and slashes. The imps screamed furiously, but Rydia put an end to that as well. She released a Thundara spell, channeling the energy through the fiend's weapons and delivering a life-ending charge of electricity. The imps fell to the ground as char.

The added heat from her spell sizzled on the air for a few minutes as the group gasped for breath. Rosa immediately set about curing wounds, the green glow she cast nearly filling Rydia's vision entirely.

"That…did not go smoothly," Cecil rasped.

"Mindless," Kain intoned, dropping to one knee and removing his helmet.

Rydia looked at the dragoon, at his long blonde hair dripping with sweat. He looked fatigued, and troubled by more than just the journey. Again he threw off Rosa's offer of healing, and the Mage instead focused on Rydia's wounds which consisted mostly of deep scratches and bruises.

"We have to take them by surprise," Yang was saying on the fringes of Rydia's hearing. "If they get too close, most of our weapons are of no use for defense or offense."

"And something's still out there," Rydia said at last, looking at Cecil when she spoke.

His helmet was also off and his gray eyes met hers.

"We're almost to the plateau," he began tiredly. "If we can last until then, we should set up a proper camp and use the protection wards of a tent."

"That will take some time," Rosa argued. "I thought we were avoiding the preparing of wards until we had no choice."

"We can't last much longer," Cecil pointed out.

"It would be helpful to seek the protection of wards and not keep a guard," Yang suggested. "I'm not sure how much more of this heat I can endure without proper sleep."

"To the plateau, then," Kain said, standing up. Rydia noticed him grimace before slipping his helmet back on and hiding his face from them.

She sighed. She was beginning to see this journey as futile as well. How much time could they have saved by going with the Dwarven forces? By the time they reached the Tower of Bab-il, there was no telling if Golbez would be two or even three steps ahead of them.

Their march continued. The hours dragged on. Heat exhaustion was beginning to take its toll. Cecil and Kain felt it first in their heavy armor, then all the rest. When they finally reached the plateau Cecil had marked on the map, they collapsed. It took all of Cecil's coaxing to get anyone off the ground and setting up the wards of protection around their campsite. There were wards that came with tents, and lasted for up to twelve hours, but it took some preparation to set them up. It was this preparation time that Rosa and Cecil had originally wanted to avoid, but none of them would be much use to anyone without a decent bout of sleep.

When all was prepared and the tent put up, all of them threw down their bedrolls and took off much of their armor and other gear. Rydia noted that the wards of protection also kept the air within the tent comfortably cool. Brilliant inventions, these.

Rydia had just closed her eyes when she heard Rosa talking and decided to listen in. "Take heart, Kain. Golbez was in a sorry state the last we saw him. I find it hard to believe he wouldn't spend at least some time licking his wounds and planning his next moves."

"He isn't like normal humans, Rosa. He'll have made a move already," Kain countered.

"But he won't be expecting an attack on his base, not while there's another Crystal at large. He would expect us to go for the last Crystal."

"I still think this plan was entirely ill-conceived. King Giott is hot for revenge against his lands and people. How much does he really know about the lore surrounding the Crystals? In his eyes they might just be stones of immense power, but he might not realize the significance of all of the Crystals acting in concert. We should have thought this through more carefully," Kain continued, becoming more heated with each word.

"Have we thought _any_ of this through?" Cecil asked. "We've done nothing but play into his hands since the beginning. Why not plan something as unexpected as this?"

"The closer to danger, the farther from harm?" Kain asked, doubtful. "The Dark Knight I once knew would never have ascribed to that—sneaking through the backdoor when he could take anything by force through the front."

"Times have changed," Cecil stated flatly. "My old training has done nothing but hinder me. It's time I took a different approach. I made up my mind on Mount Ordeals that I would be rid of that life and that mentality. Golbez has his mind on the completion of his single mission—I wonder how many other avenues of thought he's covered as far as defense is concerned."

"He has enough back-up plans to be troublesome," Kain warned.

"But how many will be in place when we enter the Tower? Tell me that he didn't attack each kingdom without expecting each to fall after the first wave. He's used large-scale invasion without much planning for sabotage from the inside. His arrogance will prove his undoing…"

A nudge on Rydia's shoulder made her stop paying attention to the discussion underway. Yang was beside her, and he handed her a piece of the unleavened bread they had carried with them.

"Sometimes I feel as though I don't exist when they get into arguments like these," he confided in her quietly.

Rydia regarded him carefully. "They argue like this often?"

He munched on his bread thoughtfully and then took a swig of water from his canteen. "Often enough."

She looked at her companions on the other side of the tent. "They have each other, it's true."

"I often wonder how it was that Baron became the mightiest of all kingdoms. What was it that made _that_ kingdom's forces so vulnerable to manipulation?"

"I don't know," Rydia admitted, "but three people of Baron are with us now. Maybe they can explain it."

"Sometimes I think it's dangerous that the three of them are so close," Yang said eventually.

"What do you mean?"

"Childhood friends, but perhaps more. It's made us vulnerable in the past…hopefully it doesn't pose a problem in the future."

"What are you saying, exactly?"

"It's hard to see the truth when you're too close to it," Yang explained. "We have to remain clear-headed, Rydia. You and I have to see things as they truly are before danger comes to our group from within."

She looked into the Monk's clear brown eyes. They were thinking the exact same thing. "I'll be watchful," she said.

"We might not have our own kin with us as they do, but we have each other," Yang assured her. "We must hold together until the end."

"Until the end," Rydia agreed.

Yang scooted over to his own bedroll and laid down. Rydia reclined on her own bedding, staring up at the ceiling of the tent and catching bits and pieces of the debate among the three friends on the other side of the tent. They were the lucky ones. They had known each other all their lives and not one of them had lost each other. There was a trust between them that Rydia didn't understand. A trust she disliked. Were they blind when it came to Kain's misgivings? She had sensed on more than one occasion some kind of turmoil going on behind his mask. Why didn't Cecil and Rosa see it?

Maybe part of it was jealousy. Maybe part of it was her own insecurity. She closed her eyes and sighed, and for the first time since she returned, she wished she was back in the Feymarch among her own "kin"...in her own _home,_ where things made _sense_.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Rydia’s dreams turned in circles. One moment she was in Mist, singing rhymes at the table she shared with her mother; the next moment she was atop Mount Hobbs, listening to the worries and joys of her much older friends; then she was in the Feymarch listening to Ramuh recite lists of herbs while Black snored in a corner; and finally, she was surrounded by each of her current companions, sitting around an unlit fire, everyone facing out rather than in. _Will we ever find peace?_ Rosa asked quietly…

Rydia’s eyes fluttered open, suddenly feeling an immense weight on her chest.

“What in the world…” she said quietly to herself, alarmed. She sat up on her bedroll and

looked around, finding the tent empty.  The Feymarch had heightened her senses, surely, but to be able to dream so vividly still? Was it a sign of things to come? Was what she had seen happening now? Rydia held her head in her hand for a moment, taking a deep breath.

“Hold yourself together, Rydia. It’s just the heat.”

She steadied herself and wondered why no one had awakened her earlier. She didn’t want to be the one that held up the journey. Straightening her robes as she stood, she stepped out of the tent. When the canvas flap fell back, Rydia was amazed. For a split second, she had the impression that she’d stepped into a different world. The air had cooled off, and even the brightness of the magma was not as overpowering. It was as if night had truly fallen on the Underworld.

                Rosa was standing a few feet in front of her with her arms folded across her chest. When Rydia drew abreast of her, she saw the white mage frowning.

                “Rosa?”

                Rosa stirred, as if caught in the middle of some unpleasant thought, and glanced at Rydia.

                “Good morning,” she said distractedly.

                “Is everything alright?”

                Rosa suddenly smiled, but Rydia wasn’t convinced the emotion behind it was genuine.

                “Everything’s fine. We’re about ready to leave.”

                Rydia looked past Rosa and saw Cecil standing in the distance looking grim. Her dream suddenly returned to the front of her thoughts.

                “The air has cooled off,” Rosa mused. “Even the middle of the Earth sleeps from time to time. Just wish it would stay this way until we reach the Tower.”

Rydia looked at her friend. She felt like she was looking at one piece of a puzzle she didn’t understand. All of them fit into it in different ways, but why couldn’t she see the larger picture? Why couldn’t she know how things would turn out? She didn’t have much time to ask the white mage any questions. The routine of the march was so familiar that the entire encampment was removed and packed within a few minutes. Rydia kept an eye on each of her companions, waiting for clues, waiting for anything. The idea that they were two separate groups had been gnawing at her for a while even before Yang had spoken to her about it, but what would happen if she brought it to their attention? Would it solve anything? Would it drive them farther apart?

She put her doubts aside, hoping that by the time they reached the Tower, her unease would abate. She tried for several days. Tried and failed.

Kain made her suspicious, even afraid. It had started off small, but after another day of marching, his attitude changed her suspicion to concern. He remained separate from them on most occasions, rarely spoke, rarely ate…rarely did much of anything aside from being Cecil’s right-hand in battle. He had even taken longer watches than the rest of them whenever they stopped to rest. Why didn’t Cecil notice?

                Doubt had certainly become a growing force among the group. Finally she confided in Yang.

“It’s getting worse,” she said.

Yang made a small nod of affirmation, his dark eyes pinned ahead as if trying to spot bad weather. “There’s tension everywhere,” he acknowledged.

“Is that why he’s returned? To hold us back—to put the mission in danger?”

Yang cast a knowing gaze on her for a moment, looking tired, but also wise. “I don’t think that’s the case. But there are wounds that are still raw. Only time will tell if we have the courage to mend all the ill that’s been wrought by this war.”

“That’s it? But you said that we were supposed to be watchful, to prevent this from happening! What about Cecil, shouldn’t we tell him what’s going on?”

“He already knows,” Yang said finally.

Rydia looked at Cecil walking ahead of her. “Knows what exactly?”

“That there’s tension and doubt. What he’s ignoring is that his friend has unresolved demons.”

“Does he not realize what this is doing to Rosa—to the rest of us?”

 “When I said they were too close to each other, Rosa is the main issue. The hearts of men are sometimes hard to discern, Rydia, but they often lead to trouble.”

Rydia scrunched her brow, trying to figure out what he meant exactly.  “Each of them wants to protect her in their own way?” she asked.

Yang smiled, “Yes, you could say that.”

“I don’t like this. Walking blindly, ignoring the truth!” she declared, a little more loudly than she intended.

She noticed with a jolt of panic, that Rosa had turned around and was looking at her oddly. “Ignoring the truth about what?” Rosa asked.

Rydia chewed on her lower lip. Should she tell them? Was this the time?

“That we’ve all gone mad,” Rydia lied—well, half-lied.

“Why do you say that?”

Rydia’s tired mind worked hard to find an explanation. In the end it was Yang who saved her.

“We agreed to walk all this way,” he said wryly.

Rosa nodded with a knowing look and a small smile, before she returned to her conversation with Cecil.

When Rydia was certain Rosa was no longer listening, she turned again to Yang. “Why are they content to stay this way?”

Yang frowned a little, “I suspect that they prefer a broken system that works. We might be limping along, but we’re still moving.”

Rydia ran fingers through tangled and sweat matted hair. “I don’t understand this at all.”

“With time, maybe, you will,” Yang assured her. “For now, we have to know where to draw the line between what works and what’s dangerous. I don’t see the danger yet, but we’ve a long way to go in this war. Who knows what will happen between all of us.”

Rydia was contented only a little by her conversation with Yang. The slow, drawn out nature of their travels kept her mind wandering dark paths. Whenever they paused to rest and her suspicions were beginning to overwhelm her, she asked Yang other questions. He calmed her with stories of what had happened to him when they’d all been separated by Leviathan—what happened when Caignazzo was killed and the kingdom of Baron was lifted out of madness. She was fascinated by Edward’s part of the tale and his quick thinking that saved them from the Dark Elf. These distractions kept her from finding more reasons to dislike the Dragoon, but they were only temporary.

                They’d traveled two more days before the ground began to convulse with enough force that Rydia and the others stumbled to their knees.

                “Is the Underworld collapsing?” Rosa exclaimed with a shriek when dust began to thicken the air.

                “Kain, can you see anything from higher up?” Cecil asked, looking at the clouds of dust with concern.

                The dragoon ran forward, gaining speed, and then lifted into the air, a blue blur among the tawny clouds and fumes. They waited for what seemed an eternity before he returned to the ground.

                “It’s a bombardment,” he said, out of breath. “The dwarves are engaging the Tower.”

                “They’re causing _this_ much commotion?” Rosa gasped.

                “How far are we from reaching them?” Yang asked.

                “Maybe a half day’s march,” Kain estimated.

                Cecil quickly looked at everyone, assessing them. “We don’t have that much time. If the tower remains under siege for too long, Golbez is bound to return to protect his fortress. Can we move any faster?”

                Rydia glanced at Rosa, thinking quickly. “Rosa, can you cast a spell on us?”

                Rosa, seeming to know where this line of thinking was headed, frowned. “I could cast the Haste Spell, but it would make us more exhausted by the time we reached the Tower.”

                “We might have to take that chance,” Cecil said grimly.

                “I don’t like this, Cecil,” Rosa warned. “We’ll move faster, certainly, but the distance being crossed is still the same. There might not be time to rest when we reach the Tower.”

                “If worse comes to worse, we’ll have to dip into our stock of potions,” Cecil mentioned.

                “Potions can give us that kind of energy?” Rydia asked, curious.

                “Honestly, I’ve never tried it,” Cecil admitted.

                Rosa rolled her eyes. “Their effects will only last for so long. Eventually our bodies will deteriorate.”

                “What if we make sure to drink extra water?” Rydia asked.

                “That might work, but the magic of the spell can only bolster us to a point, the rest is up to us. Water will help stave off the exhaustion, but I’ve never tested it against conditions like this.”

                “Time to take chances,” Cecil said resolutely.

                Rosa gave him a look, and then turned to Rydia. “Rydia, I’m relying on you to keep those canteens filled.”

                Rydia nodded emphatically, and watched as Rosa began to chant. The soft green glow of white magic surrounded her. She outstretched her hand and the rest of them were also suffused with the power of the spell. Rydia felt her body flood with energy. She felt like she could do anything.

                “Let’s go!” Cecil shouted, sprinting across the rocks like some wild thing.

                They all followed, moving far faster than their bodies would ordinarily allow. Every few minutes, Rosa would call them to a halt to drink from their canteens. It seemed like the white mage was worrying over nothing to Rydia, whose body felt electrified, but when she looked at their surroundings, she found that they had traveled great distances in very short periods of time.

                They were about to pass around the plateaus that loomed between themselves and the Tower when Rydia suddenly felt like a rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. Time seemed to move backwards and her eyes blurred. She fell to her knees, and she wasn’t the only one.

                All five of them came to the ground panting.

                “I told you,” Rosa wheezed.

                Rydia, never remembering the after-effects of a haste spell was completely caught off-guard.

                “Cast it again,” Cecil demanded.

                “No,” Rosa insisted, shaking her head.

                “We’re close,” Kain said, leaning heavily on one knee.

                “I agree with Rosa,” Yang interjected. “I don’t think I could  go through that again. Battle is one thing, traveling great distances is another. I’m too old for this sort of travel.”

                “Now what? Crawl the rest of the way?” Cecil asked.

                “I warned you this could happen,” Rosa said, glaring at him.

                “I feel like I’ve just been run over by Titan,” Rydia mumbled, almost incoherently, laying flat on her back.

                “We should get—OOF!” Kain said, only to fall back to the ground with a long stone quill embedded in his shoulder. It had penetrated the plating of his armor, and the wound was already weeping blood.

                “Kain!” Rosa cried, rushing over to him.

                The rest of them turned to look at what had assaulted them. Several rodents, and slate-gray basilisks that put their Upperworld kin to shame appeared among the rocks. In the rush of exhaustion, none of them had paid attention to their surroundings—plenty of crags and ravines. Perfect for hiding. Perfect for an ambush.

                Rydia was tired. She was tired of the heat, of walking, and of the tensions between her companions. She wanted this over as quickly as possible. She had already decided which Eidolon to summon, and she gathered her wits and began to chant.

 

………………………………………………

 

As Rosa kept her hand pressed to Kain’s armor, she wondered when they had all lost their wits. She herself wasn’t in her best form. Sleep was elusive, and nightmares returned sometimes in the middle of the day. She’d tried to blame them on mirages, but the chill on her heart was so powerful, it felt like the inferno around them was nothing but a warm breeze. Kain still made her jump sometimes, as if she couldn’t be sure which version of him she was seeing from one minute to the next. And now the rest of them had convinced her into this fool-hardy plan. Look where it had gotten them!

                Rosa despised feeling helpless.

                “Rosa, help…help the others. I’m fine,” Kain rasped.

                “Be quiet,” she said with force.

                “Rosa…”

                Rosa looked down at him, at the blue eyes she could now see with his helmet tipped upwards. There was a storm brewing there, and for a moment she felt it too. This was all her fault. She knew it. All because of whom she had chosen…

                “If you die here, I’ll pursue you through every level of the afterlife,” she declared, fully realizing that it was something Cid would say. What had come over her? Truthfully she felt a bit light, as if she could do almost anything.

                She spared a glance toward Cecil, but her vision was overcome by a sudden white maelstrom. Rydia stood in the middle of it, an oasis of color in a white world, her thin arms held as if in meditation. A woman stood beside her, pale glistening skin, with long dark hair frosted by a layer of ice. The woman raised her hand in an elegant gesture, then brought it down like the stroke of a blade. Ice flew in every direction, cutting, biting ice. Rosa couldn’t see a thing for a moment, and then it was gone. The woman was gone, only Rydia remained standing, hands lowering. The creatures were decimated, and the ice from the spell evaporating into a fog, made the entire scene, well, otherworldly.

                “Nice work,” Rosa heard Yang say, clapping a hand on Rydia’s shoulder. They both turned to look at her where she sat beside Kain.

                Rydia’s expression was hard to read, but the Summoner’s gaze shifted to Cecil, and Rosa noticed that Cecil was staring at herself.

                “Is he alright?”

                “He will be once I get some help,” Rosa said resolutely.

                Cecil walked over to her and knelt beside his friend.

                “I’m fine,” Kain said weakly.

                “Idiot,” Cecil said. “You’re been pierced through the shoulder.”

                “I’ve been worse,” Kain muttered, blood showing at the corners of his mouth.

                “Keep quiet,” Rosa told him. Looking at Cecil, she said, “I need you to pull the spike out when I tell you to. I’ll begin the incantation.”

                “What should I do exactly?”

                “Put pressure around the wound and then pull upwards as straight as possible.”

                “How will I know when you’ve almost finished the incantation?”

                “You’ll know. I’ll give you a sign.”

                Rosa began to chant, and when she felt confident that she’d woven together the necessary threads of healing she required, she reached out and touched Cecil’s hand. This was her sign.

                Cecil pulled, she finished the incantation, and the harmony of several elements working in concert, knitting flesh back together, consumed her attention.

                Kain sighed and closed his eyes. Rosa frowned. The wound was deep. Closing it was taking more effort than she had planned. Finally, after several minutes of sustained magic, the damage had been healed. Rosa leaned over, doubly exhausted.

                “Can you stand?” Cecil asked, offering both of them a hand.

                Rosa looked at Cecil with wonder. She seemed to be doing a lot of that recently. When she expected him to act one way, he acted another. His disposition as a paladin was far warmer than it had been when he wore the Dark Armor. He was as she’d known him when they were small, just children—before all this bloodshed.

                It amazed her how quickly he had come to trust Kain—how quickly _she_ had come to trust him.

                They both stood, and she found Yang and Rydia standing close by, staring at them with concern. Rydia seemed distant, which was so different from the Rydia she had once known. It seemed to Rosa that she was experiencing a brief moment of clarity, when it finally occurred to her how much each of them had changed. She couldn’t tell if it was for good or bad.

                “The exhaustion’s not so bad anymore,” Cecil observed with a smile.

                “You’re right,” Yang agreed.

                Another round of bombardment shook the ground, this time more powerful than the last. “We’re close,” Yang continued. “Let’s get this business over with.”

                Rosa nodded wearily, and looked around at everyone, trying to pinpoint what was bothering her. She was going to figure this out sooner or later, she decided. For now, they just had to survive this mission.


	7. Chapter 7

Cecil

Cecil spent the last leg of their march trying to ignore many things. The fatigue, for one; and the dread of what awaited them not more than a few miles away. The after-effects of the Haste Spell were thankfully short-lived, but they had learned their lessons. No more cheating with magic. But there was also the matter of unanswered questions that he had yet to piece together. He had spent mile after mile thinking things over, trying to make sense of his life thus far. There had been a time when everything he'd ever known had made sense. He knew who he was, where he was going, and where he stood in the world. Now, he felt confused and constantly bewildered.

Relinquishing the Dark Armor had not only taken a blind from his eyes, but also changed his destiny…and his past. Who was the Light on Mount Ordeals, why hadn't Golbez killed him in the Tower of Zot, and where did Kain fit into all this?

Kain puzzled him most of all. Obviously, his friend was contrite. He walked around like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but was it really his guilt? He had been under the control of another—surely he couldn't be held responsible for all of his actions…but Rydia's response to his presence in the group had been one of outrage. Who should he believe? His childhood friend—the man he regarded as a brother—or the girl who only knew details about events from a seven-year-old's perspective? He had no intention of denying Rydia's claim of injustice, but she didn't know Kain as he did…she had been too young at the time to really comprehend all that was going on around her…She couldn't know the circumstances and how great the dark influence of Baron had been on all of them. He could forgive Kain, but she couldn't. She saw things in black and white, not the shades of gray that he did…or maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had lost his ability to tell a truth from a lie. He had been trusting of Baigan, too, and had it not been for the twins, they would have been fed to the wolves.

He raised a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. How was he going to resolve this? If distrust tore them apart, they would never survive. They may as well have set off on a suicide mission. Kain and Rydia would have to reach an understanding of their own, but forcing them to confront the past could be disastrous. He sighed, and caught Rosa eyeing him.

He looked away. It wasn't that he wasn't glad to have her with him, but Rosa…complicated things. She was a White Mage through and through, and her desire to heal, he felt, sometimes overrode her sense of reason. She would want to fix whatever it was he couldn't, but there were things he wished she'd leave alone. She wanted to get involved in everything—to know what he was thinking—but this entire mission, this entire journey, was something he wished she wasn't on. Maybe it was the fact that she was willingly placing herself into danger on his behalf that sent him off-balance. He couldn't protect her from a distance, but was having her with him any safer? His mind reeled with scenarios of what could happen to her if things went wrongly.

There were a few particularly troubling thoughts rattling around in his mind before he realized he was thinking about everything he was trying to ignore, and re-doubled his efforts _not_ to think about any one thing in particular.

Fortunately, after climbing through a rough patch of land, his eyes locked onto a sight that threw everything from his mind.

The Tower of Babil. He'd seen it from a distance, been in rooms and corridors of similar design, but nothing had prepared him for seeing the Tower at its base. It was wide, monstrous, and seemed so alien, that it was startling to see such a clean bright structure emerging from such a stark, earthy landscape. The tanks of the Dwarves also appeared in the distance as a great line of metal machines. The bombardment had continued and clouds of dust rose from the ground like geysers, shifting colors in the light from both the magma seas and the cool blue-gray of the Tower.

When Cecil and the others drew close to the perimeter of the tanks, they found behind the line of artillery, rows and columns of tents…or were they cabins? There was a defensive line of Dwarf soldiers guarding the flank, and Cecil was deciding who he should seek out first, when a Dwarf appeared among the ranks who was taller than the rest. He strode toward them, and when he came close, Cecil noticed that the Dwarf rose to the height of his mid-chest, the tallest Dwarf he'd met so far. His dark beard was long and tied into two braids, and he wore a helmet with prongs that looked just as formidable as his expression.

"Lali-ho!" he greeted them with a voice that boomed like cannon fire.

"Lali-ho!" Cecil said, returning the greeting.

"You've finally arrived! We were wondering if the re-enforcements King Giott sent would ever be coming." He looked them over. "You look like hell."

Cecil detected Kain bristling next to him. Cecil held up one hand as a warning to his friend. This was not the time to let their exhaustion get the best of them.

"We came as quickly as we could," Cecil explained. "But we're unfamiliar with this terrain and the heat is something we've never experienced."

"You don't have the skin of a Dwarf, that's for certain," the Dwarf agreed. "My name is Hrothgar, and I am the Captain of this force. As you're the ones who are mad enough to attempt the Tower, I have something for you before you set out again."

Hrothgar turned and walked away, clearly meaning to lead them somewhere. Cecil turned to look at Rosa, sharing his bewilderment, and then began to follow the Dwarf Captain.

They stopped at a large tent, which was more like a stone cabin with a canvas roof. Not canvas, Cecil corrected himself—monster hide. A Dwarf soldier held open the flap so they could enter, and all of them did so, ducking slightly so as not to bump into the stone lintel.

Hrothgar stopped at a small table where a few more maps were strewn. There was a jar resting there, and when Cecil and the others had gathered around, he removed the stopper.

"I have here, elixir from our stores at the castle. It isn't much, but it's enough to heal your hurts from your long journey here. We also have some food stuffs if you'd like. Who knows how long you'll spend in that Tower climbing toward the heavens. You might need it."

Cecil bowed, gratefully. "Thank you," he said.

He was given the jar first, but he passed it to Rosa, who took a sip and passed it to Rydia, and around it went. After Cecil had taken a sip of the life-giving liquid, he handed it back to the Captain.

"Are you in need of any foodstuffs?" Hrothgar asked.

Cecil looked at Rosa, but she was pursing her lips in a fashion he recognized—the "You don't want my honest opinion right now"—face. He resisted rolling his eyes, and looked at Yang instead.

"We've enough for several days' worth of travel. We can ration if need-be," the Monk answered.

Cecil agreed with Yang, not being fond of Dwarf food in the slightest, and declined the Captain's offer. Seeming content with not having to part with any of his supplies, Hrothgar ushered them out of the tent again.

"We've kept a consistent bombardment for several phases now." Cecil assumed "phases" were the Dwarves way of referring to night and day. "The enemy has sent a great force against us, but we destroyed 'em. You should find that many of their advance forces have been taken care of. Only the rear-guard should remain."

"Is the main gate still guarded?"

"I would say that the enemy's forces are a bit too disorganized to mount a proper defense after the abuse we've given 'em. Be careful, though. Once inside, you might find other traps."

"Golbez doesn't do anything part-way," Kain mentioned. "He'll have something waiting for us there, you can be sure of it. It's just a matter of us not knowing what that is."

"What do you mean?" Yang asked.

"There's still another Elemental Archfiend," Kain explained. "He might be there, he might not. Golbez usually keeps his generals close. They could be anywhere."

"Elemental Archfiends?" Rydia asked. "Didn't you destroy one in Baron? How many of them are there?"

"All-told, four," Kain answered. "But he has other servants as well. Even if the last Archfiend isn't in the Tower, there's a resident who it would be better not to encounter…"

Cecil was surprised by this news. Indeed, he had no idea there had been another Fiend. Kain seemed to only be giving them information on a need-to-know basis. It rankled him a little, to not have known about this until now.

"Who is the other 'resident'?" Cecil asked.

"A mad scientist," Kain supplied. "Rumor has it that he was exiled from his native lands for practices that were considered unorthodox against mankind."

Rosa's face paled. "Unorthodox against mankind?" she murmured. "What on earth could he have done for his own people to shun him in such a way?"

"I'd almost rather not know, but Golbez had mentioned he had talents in alchemy and was a student of the inner workings of the body. His section of the Tower was referred to as the 'Zoo'."

Cecil noticed Rydia shudder, hugging herself tightly across the chest. He himself couldn't help but see Images of monsters and humans with two heads, and it was too disturbing to consider. He hoped they didn't meet this "scientist" either.

"The reason monsters have been appearing in greater numbers…does this man have anything to do with it?" Rosa asked.

Kain shrugged. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. Though, Golbez is more than capable of creating terrors with his own hands without having to rely on others."

Cecil pondered that for a moment. If that was true, what use did Golbez have for this other? It couldn't be something insignificant. Golbez never did anything by halves.

"As I said," Hrothgar interrupted them. "Be careful for traps. I myself would rather die fighting within a cave or atop the rampart of my castle, not set foot in that alien monstrosity you call a Tower. It's unnatural. It sets upon the Earth without really being one with it."

He led them to the edge of the encampment and they began to file between tanks. The tanks were enormous up close. _No wonder the Enterprise took so much damage._

"We'll cease our bombardment to give you a chance to get across the plain."

Cecil looked and saw through the smoke that was still billowing from the ground, a field strewn with the corpses of monsters. The distance was considerable, but with the effects of the elixir, it was no longer daunting.

"Here we part ways," Hrothgar said. "May your mission prove successful, Children of the Upperworld."

"Thank you for your help," Cecil told him, though truthfully, he felt as though they were being propelled onward with little to-do.

Rosa bowed to the Dwarf captain, and Cecil couldn't help but emulate. Leave it to Rosa to show decorum even in this barren environment.

Cecil then looked at everyone, and saw the grim determination in their faces.

"Time to get this over with," he said gravely.

They all nodded, steeling themselves against what was to come. Cecil gazed up at the Tower's immense height. This was not going to be easy…


	8. Chapter 8

Rosa

Rosa felt something in her heart wither when the five of them set foot in the Tower of Babil. The false light, the thrum of gears—it was like stepping back into a nightmare.

                She tucked herself between Cecil and Yang in the line and tried to appear as unbothered as possible, but the truth was, she was terrified. The last time she had been in hallways like these, was during her captivity. She didn’t like to think about those months very often, but it seemed at the moment, she didn’t have much choice. She was surrounded by reminders of those dark times. Living in a cell in the Tower of Zot like a caged animal with no sunlight and scant food… Only the knowledge that Cecil was coming for her, had kept her sane at all.  

Kain’s presence to her right, sent a chill through her. It was his silence, the environment, and her troubled thoughts that made her doubt him all over again. Which version of him was she seeing now? The Kain she’d known since childhood, or her sullen captor? Cecil stopped unexpectedly, and Rosa nearly tripped over her own feet trying not to bump into him. She felt a hand on her arm, steadying her, and realized it was Kain’s. She inhaled sharply, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. His blue eyes were concerned, but clear. She let her breath out slowly. There was no malice behind his actions, no second consciousness controlling him. This was _Kain_.

                Cecil began walking again, choosing a different hallway, and the movement allowed Rosa’s thoughts to flow in a new freshet. What was it exactly that had allowed Kain to be manipulated? He had been influenced enough to remain servile, but not enough to escape her influence on him. She had almost broken through to him in Fabul’s crystal room, she’d been sure of it. But what did it all mean? Why had he allowed Golbez to take her prisoner and use her as a bargaining piece? She clenched her fists. For their friendship to be manipulated in such a way…

                And then she nearly laughed. How long had it been since the three of them had moved beyond the threshold of friendship? _Naïve fool!_ she thought to herself.

                She pinned her eyes on the corridor ahead, guilt and anger twisting knots in her stomach. She had never meant for Kain to develop feelings for her, but somehow she’d known…always ignoring them in light of her own feelings for Cecil.Hadn’t he even admitted them to her—right after she’d been freed in Zot? She wondered if Cecil had never arrived, would _he_ have set her free at the last minute, right before the blade fell? The thought of cold steel coming down on her, severing her spirit from its mortal shell… _Kain, would you have saved me in the end, or would you have let me die at your ‘master’s’ command?_  

                She would never know for sure.

                She glanced at him again, at the set line of his mouth, at his tired eyes. Could it be, that he was wondering the same thing at that precise moment?

                She took a few more breaths, letting the air out of her lungs slowly, calmly. This was Golbez’s fault, she reminded herself. He was the root of the evil surrounding them. Kain would never willingly commit such acts, she _knew_ that. She tried seeing the good in him, and not the puppetry. Besides, Cecil was with her again, and having both Kain and Cecil working together, they were once again the unstoppable pair—the two great captains of Baron.

With that resolution in place, she began to pay attention to their surroundings again. It was difficult, though, as they never seemed to change. The numbing presence of technology was stifling, but it was the eerie sounds that were the worst. Doors opened in the distance with no discernable footsteps, monsters keened around corners and through walls, and lights turned on as they walked underneath, only to turn off again as the group pressed onward, leaving darkness in their wake. It was easy to lose one’s edge, or sanity, for that matter, in this place.

                Cecil led them through a series of twisting passages; through doorways that slid open into pockets in the wall, and up stairs—an endless quantity of stairs. Rosa admired Cecil’s leadership the higher they climbed. She didn’t know if she would have the nerve to press on and maintain a clear head. It helped to have the three men strategizing from floor to floor. She and Rydia had their own skills and talents, but when it came to battle they relied almost entirely on the men. One would scout, the other lead, and the third, trail, and their efficiency with this routine made Rosa think it had something to do with their experiences in Zot. She sighed again. All of that work to get her out of a tower and now she was climbing back into one.

                At one doorway, Cecil paused uncomfortably long. It was a large door, one that was at least twice the height of any human, and twice as wide. Yang had stepped through, listening with his head cocked to the side, and Cecil was still eyeing the hallway for any roaming fiends. Even Rosa knew there must be something lying ahead. She slipped her bow off her shoulder and nocked an arrow. Rydia was eyeing her apprehensively, holding the coil of her whip in her hand.

                Rosa felt a pang of guilt when she looked at the Summoner. She was so young! Did she really know what she was getting herself into? Rosa shook her head. She had to stop seeing Rydia as the little girl she’d first met in Kaipo. It had been a full decade, _a full ten years,_ since Rydia had been with them. Rosa thought back to the magma plains when Rydia had used her magic for defense and survival. She had never known a Black Mage to use spells in that manner, as if Rydia was using her magic intuitively, not in the studied manner of some mages. Rydia was not a little girl. Young, yes, but helpless? Rosa had to reassess the Summoner on a daily basis. She was full of surprises.

                But then, so was each bend in the Tower. They never knew what might be lurking in the shadows just beyond light’s reach. What lay behind this door, she wondered. A Flame Hound? Or worse, a Lamia?

                The roar that resounded in her ears told her otherwise. Her blood chilled, and her eyes widened as lightning arced through the cavernous hallway beyond.

                Cecil ducked back into the doorway, pushing her in the direction they’d come.

                “We’re going to have to run!” he said in a rush.

                They sprinted as quickly as they could down another branch of the hallway and through another set of doors, leaving the thundering of dragon feet and a roar behind them.

                The lights had snicked on and the five of them found themselves in a small room with nothing in it but a few levers and switches.

                “What _was_ that?” Rydia asked, after a moment, catching her breath and looking over her shoulder at the door that was sliding to a close.

                “A dragon?” Rosa reinforced. “How could there possibly be a dragon in here?”

                Kain paused, looking back. “I don’t particularly care, nor do I want to know how a dragon entered these halls. All I know for certain is that I don’t want to meet another one.”

                Cecil grimaced, relaxing his sword arm. “Why do I feel like I’ve entered some kind of circus?”

                “We must be getting closer to the ‘Zoo’,” Kain answered, his voice serious.

                Rosa sighed. Strange things were only bound to multiply as they climbed higher. It raised goosebumps on her skin.

                “Are you alright?” Rydia asked, placing a hand on her arm.

                Rosa nearly jumped, but put on her bravest face. “Absolutely,” she lied.

                She had to give Rydia credit. The girl saw through her lie as if looking through a pane of glass.

                “I don’t like this place, either,” Rydia admitted, looking past her. “Brings back unpleasant memories.”

                Rosa stared at her friend. “Of your—?”

                Rydia’s green eyes were troubled. “Monsters like these invaded the Feymarch not too long ago. We had little time, and a warning…but Golbez clearly wanted the Eidolons preoccupied. I don’t know if he was looking for crystals or if he simply wanted to destroy them…all I know is that a few Eidolons lost their lives. I can’t forgive Golbez for that.”

                “His reach has gone so far,” Rosa murmured.

                “Still,” Rydia added with an encouraging smile, “I’m happy I’m not alone.”

                “Rydia…”

                The Summoner shifted her gaze to the door which was now open. Cecil was peering into the hallway, checking to see if their dragon had pursued them this far. Then he looked to the left and Rosa heard him stifle a chuckle. He pointed and Yang joined him to see what it was.

                “You must be joking,” the monk uttered.

                He and Yang stepped out of the room, Cecil beckoning for the rest of them to follow.

                “Come on, I think Cecil’s found the stairs to the next floor,” the green haired girl said, sounding hopeful. Rydia pulled at her arm until she followed willingly.

 _Jumping from one danger into the next,_ Rosa thought glumly.

Still…Rydia’s attitude affected her, that spark of positivity amidst all the gloom. She found herself relaxing, despite her earlier dread.

                _So long as we’re all here together,_ she thought, _I can get through this._   


	9. Chapter 9

A dragon on the last floor, and now couerls? Black's warning of how dangerous they could be now struck uncomfortably close to home. Rydia decided that she definitely hated the feline fiends, and ardently, at that. Their claws, their teeth, and the whiskers that splayed out like whips—everything about them, she loathed. Her robes, right down to the leather vest she wore, were torn and slashed. She had hurts in places she never knew she could hurt and she couldn't help but wonder: what next?

Her tired feet carried her forward, the cracked soles of her boots making scuffling sounds on the cold tile floor. It had taken them hours to find the last set of stairs, and _that_ discovery had been pure luck. The search for the next set was proving to be equally long and far less fortuitous. She'd started counting time by the quantity of couerls they had slain. The current tally was twenty—she estimated that to be, well, a long time. It was hard to tell whether they were wandering in circles, all she knew for certain was that her magic reserves were dwindling to nothing. She glanced at Rosa and had only to notice the other woman's dogged pace, to know they both felt the same way. When were they going to rest?

Cecil had led them through a number of corridors and into a few chambers which she held high hopes of being safe havens, but each room turned out to be guarded. When a Flame Hound jumped out at her from the corner of one room, she reacted so quickly with a blizzara spell that she encased the entire room in ice, frosting even the hem of her robes.

Rosa gave her a look bordering on wonder and disbelief.

"What _was_ that?" Cecil asked.

In truth, she had no idea. Her head was still swimming from the after-effects of the spell. Had she really conjured the blizzaga spell by reflex? Her tired mind couldn't really wrap itself around this development, but she welcomed the new addition to her arsenal even if she dreaded the headache that accompanied its use.

It was only after the ice melted and water pooled on the floor, that Cecil noticed a chest lying on the floor.

"That explains the guard," Yang remarked, loosening the straps of his claws.

Cecil stooped to break the lock and furrowed his brow when he saw what was inside.

"You would think Golbez would want to make this more difficult, not easier" he said, holding up a breastplate that shimmered like snow.

Kain stepped forward, grasping a corner of the breastplate. "These weren't meant for us," he said after a moment. "These were meant for the humans in Golbez's employ. They need protection from his monstrous creations as much as we do. It might even be the personal supply of whoever works in this part of the tower."

"Doesn't he have control over his own minions?" Cecil asked, looking up at his friend.

Kain shrugged. "Whip them into a frenzy and set them loose. No one's safe no matter what side they're on—though, most of the humans under his control aren't much different."

Rydia glanced at Kain in that instant and saw a shadow fall on his face. Was he also talking about himself?

"Still," Kain continued, "This is a good sign. It means there are others close by."

Rydia couldn't imagine many humans working for Golbez, especially if their own allies, the fiends, had as little love for them as they did for herself or Cecil. But knowing that they were getting closer made her heart pound faster.

They returned to the main corridor and continued on. Every room for the next while turned out to be treasure troves of equipment and much needed supplies. Some of the items they found were useless, and most of what they found were mechanical odds and ends that had been dumped into heaps, but there were a few gems among the trash. It was the continued presence of traps and guards that let them know they were traveling in the right direction.

More hours whittled away, and a sullen mood crept onto the company. No one spoke, or at least not very often. Cecil was dedicated to the path ahead, Yang was grim, and even Rosa was subdued and reticent. The white mage glanced furtively at Kain from time to time, and then at Cecil, as if trying to reassure herself that her companions were real, that this place was real, and that she was as lost as they were. Rydia couldn't help but feel everyone's worries and mirror them herself. What would they find at the end of this journey? Would they be able to find the crystals? Where would they go with the crystals in hand? Would Golbez return to stop them? Her head swam with possibilities, wondering if this entire climb had been worth the effort at all.

Finally, after traveling down an endless corridor, the group came upon a branch in the hall. Cecil paused, trying to decide which way to go.

"A split," Yang said tiredly. "I'm tired of this maze."

"I agree," Rosa sighed.

Cecil was still deliberating when Rydia spotted something. A door? Her interest was piqued by that discovery alone.

"Hey, isn't that a door?" she said, but no one seemed to have heard her. Kain and Cecil were having a debate over whether or not to split up, and Yang and Rosa were arguing that there was no way they'd be able to find each other again if they got lost.

Rydia rolled her eyes. This could go on for ages. Besides, the hallway was straight and unobstructed. She could quickly investigate and return with good news before they realized she was gone.

They hadn't even encountered any fiends for a long while, and the strange noises had ceased. Only the thrumming of the tower gears remained, and something about the headiness of the air made Rydia feel completely at ease. She would be safe. She headed in the direction of the door, hoping it would turn out to be a staircase. It wasn't that far away…but when she reached the section of hallway that looked most like the door she had seen, it was just a different kind of panel. She blinked. Had she been seeing things? She was _sure_ it had been a door. She was about to return the way she'd come when she saw another doorway just a little further onward, around a bend in the hall. She hesitated, wondering if she should go back or investigate. If it really was a doorway, she could at least tell Cecil what she had found.

Desire overrode caution, and she reached the doorway, and _this_ time her eyes didn't deceive her. It slid open, and she spied a staircase that was faintly lit by lights on the floor, outlining each step in silhouette. _Stairs!_ Her mind rejoiced. She was about to return to her friends, when she realized she was incapable of doing so. Why weren't her feet moving? Why couldn't she turn away? The impulse to go up the stairs was overpowering. The lights began to shimmer, as if they were insubstantial, not even real. It was around that moment, she realized that something was wrong. Panic began to build in her chest. She'd been lured here and now she was trapped!

Focusing her will on moving her legs, she managed to twist herself to face the other direction. She let out a gasp and nearly stumbled when she found what had lured her here. It was a lamia, vaguely human, but grotesque in the manner of a corpse—merely a shadow of humanity. The lamia's face was structured like a woman's but her eyes were black. Her teeth were sharp and pointed, protruding from red, parted lips. The rest of her was the body of some great worm or slug, the pallor of gray dying flesh. Rydia retched up nothing, and still unable to move, eyed the monster with growing concern. Had Cecil realized she'd gone off on her own? Why hadn't she made sure they knew she'd gone to investigate before she'd wandered off? But this section of the tower had been so peaceful and quiet…she hadn't anticipated…she'd been so _stupid!_

Shiva's voice screamed in her ear—fight back! Move your arms! Think! Belatedly, Rydia realized that while she'd been so focused on her feet, she'd neglected her arms. She fumbled for her whip, but the lamia was faster. The creature lashed out with one clawed hand, slicing into Rydia's right arm like a knife. Rydia cried out in pain, her fingers going numb and lifeless as blood poured from the wound and down her arm to the floor. All of a sudden, the hallway began to spin. Rydia fell to her knees and began to see things that couldn't possibly be right. It wasn't a lamia in front of her…it was Cecil.

"Cecil?" she called out, bewildered.

The look in his eyes was angry, accusing. Somewhere in Rydia's mind it registered that somehow this was _her_ fault—that _she_ was the problem. Had she been about to attack her own companions? Was she suffering from some kind of spell? Had she been dazed all along and was now coming to her senses? But…why would Cecil strike her? He would never do anything to harm her…he'd promised. Then his expression changed. He was relieved? He offered her a hand, and overcome with a sense of security, Rydia began to extend her left hand…but when she was so close to reaching him, all of a sudden his hand retracted. There was nothing for her to grab but empty air. She blinked furiously, trying to figure out what was going on. She was feeling dizzy and sick all at the same time, and it seemed like she was seeing things in double. Cecil and the lamia were both fighting to occupy the same space in her vision. And there was something else. A couerl? What was going on? Why were its claws sunk deeply into the flesh of Cecil's shoulders, pulling him away? Sense was escaping her…

There was a ferocious snarl and a loud snap, and in that instant, Rydia realized that Cecil had never been in the hallway with her. It was the Lamia all along that now lay dead on the ground, its gray tongue laying slack out of its mouth, and the head twisted at an awkward angle where the neck had broken. Rydia's disgust made her crawl backwards, now that the paralysis had worn off, and with the paralysis, the poison that had been clouding her mind. Now she just felt sick to her stomach, and the burning sting returned to the wound on her arm. She gazed at it like a sleeper, prodding her flesh gingerly, trying to find where the laceration began and ended.

She only attended to it for an instant before she looked up and saw the coeurl staring at her with green blood on its fur. It wasn't growling. It wasn't advancing. Instead, it was sitting back on its haunches observing her. That was unusual. The poison began to wear off further and Rydia slowly made sense of what was going on…in fact, the revelation almost made her cry tears of joy. This was no coeurl.

" _Black?"_

"What are you doing—getting dazed and half-killed?" he asked, cocking his feline head to the side.

Rydia attempted to regain some composure, but her head was dizzy. "It isn't as though I planned this…What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Right now? Checking up on you."

"Right now?" Rydia parroted, squinting at him.

"I came here on a mission from the queen, but it's just coincidence that I found you. Lucky thing, too, or you would have been mincemeat by now."

"Oh."

"You're welcome. Now," he said, walking towards her and patting her left shoulder with a paw. Rydia couldn't help but find it patronizing. "How are things?"

Rydia stared at him. "Fine," she said simply, her mood souring by the minute.

"Yes, I can see that. No potions? Not even bandages?"

Rydia sighed wistfully, closing her eyes. ""I wish I hadn't forgotten white magic…"

Black gave her a reproachful stare. "Not even potions? What in the world did we train you for?"

"I gave my last potions to Cecil," she answered sheepishly.

"Excellent."

Black closed his eyes and brought his muzzle close to Rydia's injured arm. He exhaled a soft mist on her skin.

"That should stop the pain and help stem the bleeding, but it's not healed, not by a longshot."

Rydia looked at her arm, relieved that it no longer hurt. Then she looked at Black anew. "You were sent here on a mission from the queen? Why?" she asked, changing the subject.

"The spy who helped us learn about Golbez's plans is in terrible danger. I've been sent to help them escape, if at all possible."

"You'd go to all this trouble to help a spy? You're sure you can trust them?"

"Fenrir argued a case in their defense. I'd say we owe this brave soul quite a lot."

"All that trouble for a stranger, but not for a friend, huh?"

Black ignored the barb. "So explain to me where your human friends are. Why aren't you with them?"

Rydia scowled at that. Leave it to Black to get right to the point, and while she was injured on top of things. "Well, I just…I thought I saw a door."

"They didn't follow you?"

"No." thinking quickly, she added, "I figured they'd notice that I'd left."

He stared at her intensely. "You were hoping they'd notice without you having to tell them, weren't you."

The thought honestly hadn't popped into her head until he'd said it, but once he'd put it into words, that was exactly what she'd been hoping.

"It would have been nice if they did," she admitted grudgingly.

"That's a good way to get yourself killed."

"I wasn't going to go far," she protested, "but I was tricked into wandering farther and farther off. By the time I realized I'd been trapped…well, you know the rest."

Just then, a voice echoed down the hallway.

"Rydia?" the voice called. "Rydia are you there?" It was Rosa.

"Over here!" Rydia shouted back.

Black's ears twitched in the direction of Rosa's voice. "Ah, good. Your friends have come looking for you."

There was something about the tone of his voice, that made Rydia pause. "Will I see you again?" she asked.

Black gave her a sympathetic look. " _That_ lonely, eh?"

"No. I never said that," Rydia squirmed, annoyance gnawing at her.

Black laughed, which was strange coming from his feline mouth.

"Do you need me to walk you back?"

"I'll be just _fine,_ thank you," she answered, and then added, "Thank you for your help, Black."

He nodded, "Well, I'm off, then. Be careful. There are still traps around here. I can sense them."

And with a shimmer in the air, he was gone. Rydia was left where she was, clutching her wounded arm until the others finally rounded the corner.

"Rydia!" Rosa exclaimed, running toward her.

"What happened? Cecil asked, overtaking Rosa in a few quick strides. "One minute you were with us, the next you were gone."

"I thought you were following me, but it turns out you weren't," she replied, chagrined.

Rosa shook her head, golden hair cascading around her face. "This tower is getting the best of us. Fiends aside, we can't afford to get separated again," she added, giving Cecil a piercing look.

The look in Rosa's eyes was so earnest, that Rydia felt guilty for wandering off on her own without a word. It was true, she was relieved that the five of them were together, but the last few floors had been draining on her, physically and emotionally. She had begun to believe she was invisible. Rosa's regard of her injury, however, revealed just how un-invisible she was.

Rydia winced when Rosa pulled at her sleeve and prodded the wound to determine its severity. "Ow!" she cried.

Rosa gave her a stern look with her blue eyes, and swiped a lock of out of her face. "However you managed to stop the bleeding, I can't figure out, but you're lucky. Several of your tendons are severed and you've lost a considerable amount of blood. You shouldn't be conscious."

The white mage began an incantation and touched Rydia's arm, allowing her magic to flow directly into the wound. Sinew and muscle knit back together, vessels and veins re-joined, and then the magic faded. Rydia looked down at her arm and saw that it was mostly healed.

Rosa sighed deeply and rocked backwards, but Cecil caught her shoulders and kept her upright. "That's all I have left," she murmured.

Rydia had guessed that Rosa was nearing her limit, but now she knew for certain. She hadn't been able to completely knit the skin back together, so all that remained was a thin scratch of the much deeper, serious injury. Rydia didn't mind. It would heal on its own.

"Rosa, I think you should take this," Cecil suggested, removing a phial from his pack. It was made of crystal and sparkled in the light of the hallway.

"Ether," Rosa said tiredly. "Not nearly as good as sleep, but it'll have to do."

While Rosa rested, Yang was inspecting the lamia's corpse. He saw the claw marks and gave Rydia a curious look.

"May I ask how you managed to defeat this creature by brute force without the use of one arm?" the monk asked.

"I had the help of an Eidolon," she admitted. "It was close."

"Very close," he repeated, nodding at her arm. "Next time let me in on the hunt," he added with a hurt expression.

"I won't be wandering off again anytime soon," Rydia promised.

"Speaking of wandering," Cecil mentioned, "I think we've found the next staircase."

That cleared through Rydia's thoughts like a bolt of lightning. "Wait, you mean the staircase was real?"

"That's the first bit of good news to come our way in hours," Rosa said, easing herself up to standing.

"Are the two of you able to keep going?" Cecil asked Rydia and Rosa. The two women looked at each other and then at him.

"I think so," they answered in unison.

Cecil sighed and nodded, looking all his companions in the eyes. "Let's go," he said.

Rydia linked arms with Rosa. "I wonder what we'll find on the next floor," she said hopefully.

Rosa grinned. "Hopefully no more trouble than we've already encountered. I'm tired of coeurls."

" _I know,"_ Rydia agreed.

Both women smiled at each other, relieved to be together, and followed Cecil upward into the unknown.


	10. Chapter 10

Rydia noticed Cecil’s eyes settle on her from time to time as they climbed the tower stairs. She felt her cheeks redden involuntarily, mostly from shame but partly from annoyance. Ever since she’d gotten separated, he’d been intensely cautious about letting anyone out of his sight. She didn’t appreciate being babied and she was tired of still being regarded as the seven year old trapped in the body of a girl ten years older. She had known, returning to the group, that there would be differences between her expectations and reality, but the thin veneer of confidence she’d had had been beaten and tattered to pieces.

                “I’m not going to get lost,” she said a little heatedly as they walked.

                Cecil glanced back at her in what had become too much of a routine. He knew exactly where to find her eyes. “What?” he asked.

                “I’m not going to get lost,” she repeated, meeting his gaze with one of her own, green eyes flashing. “You keep checking to make sure I haven’t wandered off again.”

                “I’m not—” he fumbled for words.

                “You don’t keep checking to make sure Rosa’s still here,” she countered.

                He made a strangled sound in his throat and looked away, but Rydia was not about to back down. She quickened her pace so she could catch up to him.

                “What _is_ it?” she insisted.

                Cecil came to a complete stop and gave her a steely look. Rydia suddenly felt like she had stepped into the jaws of a lion and was only vaguely aware of the rest of the group in her periphery staring at the two of them in utter confusion.

                “You could have died,” he said firmly.

                “I didn’t die!” she pointed out.

                “I told you I would protect you. Did you think that age had anything to do with it?”

                His eyes were begging her to understand, and part of her did, but her pride was still wounded.

                “I can take care of myself!” she argued, full knowing that if it hadn’t been for Black, she very well could have died.

                To his credit, he refrained from laughing in her face at the boldness of that statement. “I have no doubt that you are very capable of taking care of yourself. We all are. But none of us has ever faced what we’re facing now—not alone. And if you find my concern wearying,” he said, his voice rising, “just remember that not all of us have had the luxury of time to adjust to your transformation as you had!”

                “Luxury?” she balked, and noticed that he winced at the word. “Do you honestly think I enjoyed spending ten years of my life away from all of you—away from sunlight—never knowing where you were, what was going on, and hoping that someday I’d be able to join you again? Do you have any idea what it’s like to spend ten years worrying?”    




                “Rydia,” Rosa tried to intervene.

                Rydia held up a hand to stall her. “We’ve traveled for weeks, completely ignoring how things have changed. Not just for me!” she said, placing a look on Rosa, who blanched.

                “Rydia,” Rosa repeated, her voice dropping low.

                “Rosa was a prisoner. She was in a place like this; have we forgotten that already? And Kain--,” she barreled on, “—he was with her! If he’s really joined our side, why isn’t he telling us where to go? He’s been here before! Shouldn’t he know? Well?”

                Everyone looked at Kain until Cecil interceded. “We can’t expect him to be a master of this maze after only a few months of being here.”

                Rydia was not pleased. Not at all. She and Kain stared hard at each other for a long drawn out moment.

“It’s—I’m fine, Rydia,” Rosa said, severing the tension. “I know you’re worried about me, but that’s behind us now,” she added, glancing at Kain, who bowed his head. “What’s done is done.”

                Rydia moved her eyes to Rosa’s face. She saw the worry in Rosa’s brow, the dark circles under her eyes. She was begging Rydia to let it go, to allow the illusion that nothing had ever happened to continue. Rydia closed her eyes, respecting Rosa’s wishes—for now. Then she returned her attention to Kain.

“Where are the crystals?” she asked him directly, changing the subject.

                Kain looked like he’d been punched in the gut as he let out a long slow breath. “I’ve never been to this stretch of the tower,” he explained. “The tower of Zot was a pinnacle, but not the entirety of the tower. Golbez didn’t trust me enough, for one thing, to allow me to do any exploring, and the crystals were only in his keeping.”

                “I don’t believe you.”

                “That’s your prerogative,” he replied, gaining some confidence. “I have no directions to give; no comfort, no explanations. All I can do is follow wherever this rabbit trail leads and hope we can find the crystals before Golbez returns.”   




                She began tapping her foot on the tiled floor in an agitated fashion, sweeping her gaze over everyone. “Then someone explain to me again—what is it that Golbez plans to do with the crystals?”

                Cecil shook his head, the plating of his armor clinking as his shoulders moved. “We’re not sure. All we know is that the combined energy of the crystals could create a calamity or open some kind of pathway.”

                “Pathway? A pathway to what?”

                “The moon, maybe, or maybe that’s just a diversion from something else.”

                Rydia pursed her lips. “How does the moon fit into all of this? Is Golbez trying to bring it down or create some kind of magic?”

                “I’d rather not find out,” Cecil said finally.

                “And what happens when we get to the crystals?”

                Cecil sighed, staring straight back at her. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”

                Everyone looked at him apprehensively. Rydia was dismayed that after all their time spent climbing, they still hadn’t a clue what they were going to do afterwards.

                “That’s good enough for me,” Yang said reassuringly. “We’ve gotten this far already, what’s a little more walking?”

                Cecil nodded appreciatively to the monk, and it was obvious that Yang had just saved him from another uncomfortable explanation. “Any more questions?”

                No one spoke. Cecil took this is a cue to continue walking, and they did for several stretches of corridor.

                Rydia found that she couldn’t stop shaking. Her outburst had left her jittery and unsatisfied. She’d been met with more questions, and she was sure that Cecil and Rosa both hated her for dredging up the past.

                “Easy, easy,” Yang assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “It needed to be said. Just let it rest,” he whispered.

                She looked up at his warm brown eyes, finding comfort in how calm and steady he was. Somehow, he always managed to make her feel safe.

                She smiled weakly and focused instead on her feet. She was avoiding the furtive looks that Rosa was giving her. She shouldn’t have brought up the white mage’s imprisonment, but she wanted to know! How was it that Rosa could carry on as if Kain had never been one of her captors?

               After an hour, she convinced herself that Rosa would only discuss it when she was ready to do so and not a moment sooner. If Rosa could pretend that everything was normal, so could she. Besides, she still had to prove that she could hold her own, that she could be relied upon; that she wasn’t a child.

               She pursed her lips and put on her bravest face, relieved to find that there were no more mazes to contend with on their continued upward climb. The route had become straighter and narrower with fewer chances for her to become a damsel in distress. The next four floors followed each other in quick succession—staircases breeding staircases—and after hours of mind numbing indecision on previous floors, it was a joy to be making _progress_.

                As they climbed higher, the sting of the argument seemed to wear off, and moods improved as well. She and Rosa were palpably delighted to note, for at least a few minutes, that the coeurl population had dwindled. Instead, they found new fiends to take their places. Kain at one point stopped to investigate something on the floor and found a snakeskin twice as long as he was tall. Weary glances were exchanged. It was obvious by the collective expressions that no one had any interest in encountering the fiend that had once belonged to the skin.

                The odds of this happening didn’t improve as they moved forward.

                “Look at all of them,” Rosa said when they’d come across a great pile of snake skins, pale and opalescent in the light.

                “I hope we don’t find the nest,” Yang said, sifting through them, and then pushing them aside. “There are dozens of them.”

                “Could it all be from the same fiend?” Cecil asked, trying to be optimistic.

                “Maybe,” Kain supplied, “But I wouldn’t count on it.”    




                Rydia chewed on her lip, gaze flitting between Cecil and Kain. She had never been fond of snakes, let alone snakes that could swallow her whole. She toyed with an errant strand of green hair, wondering if the way ahead had been cleared. Maybe this time, they’d get lucky. After all, there was an Eidolon roaming the halls…. After finding more snake skins and evidence of recently eaten meals, she reached the conclusion that she and the others were on their own. The pang of jealousy that Black had come here for any other reason than her was hard to ignore.

                They picked their way through piles of snake skins, and Rydia’s mind had begun churning thoughts beyond the here and now. She wondered about Black; she wondered about his mission. He was rescuing a spy? The same person who had warned them of the attack on the Feymarch? Who was this person? Would they ever meet? And why had the queen allowed two Eidolons on a mission beyond the Feymarch without the support of a Summoner—namely, her?

                She brushed shoulders with Rosa, and the white mage shot her a quick look. “Rydia? Something else on your mind?”

                Rydia pinned her eyes ahead, right where she approximated Cecil’s shoulder blades to be beneath the long white cape slung over his armor. She had a mind to sulk for a good long while—about Black, about Kain, about everything—and was a bit chagrined that Rosa had chosen just then to suddenly find her interesting.

                “Just tired,” she muttered.

                Rosa didn’t seem to buy this explanation, but she merely pursed her lips and put one soft-leather booted foot in front of the other.

                After several miles of long, straight corridors, Rydia finally decided to trade all of those issues with another. She hadn’t lied when she blamed her foul mood on exhaustion, and now she was beginning to worry about the fact that none of them had stopped to rest in several hours. They hadn’t encountered any fiends, but they were all becoming footsore from the forced march through the tower. Kain had begun to favor his left foot, and Cecil’s shoulders sagged.

                She and Rosa had been drinking ethers often in order to stay sharp and alert, but they still had not found a place Cecil deemed safe enough to take any real sort of respite. They paused from time to time in dead ends and alcoves, but they hadn’t slept in days. It occurred to her that the sleep deprivation probably had something to do with the fact that it had taken them so long to traverse some of the trickier floors.

               As if reading her thoughts, Cecil slowed down and finally stopped completely. They had arrived at an alcove, more like a hallway that had been forgotten and half completed. There were many levers and dials on the wall, but all of it was incomprehensible. Nonetheless, it proved to be an excellent way-station.

              “We’ll sleep in shifts,” Cecil said, loosening the straps of his pack with the hilt of his previous sword jutting out the top.

              Rydia leaned up against the wall and allowed her body to slide downward. Her legs rejoiced at no longer having to carry her weight, but her mind was still wide awake. Nerves tended to do that. Instead, she relied on a ritual she’d begun several days earlier to quiet her mind. She recited incantations to herself, taking the time to make sure she did them properly. She had tucked a few scrolls into her belt before leaving the Feymarch and she pored over them intently when she struggled on a few of the phrases.

             This activity helped her. Not only did it calm her down, but it helped to keep her sharp. If this journey had proven anything to her, it was that her magic had changed in ways she hadn’t expected.

              She had been practicing often in the hallways, testing any alterations to her spells on the closest fiends. What she’d come to find was that the source of her magic—the crystals—was amplified. She didn’t have to strain to channel their power, and realized belatedly that it probably had something to do with their proximity. The whole tower practically buzzed with energy, and the higher they climbed the more she felt it.

              It explained why she received more power from her intermediate spells, and why certain spells were no longer behaving like they once had. It was exhilarating and a bit terrifying, but she refused to let her spells get the better of her, not in front of Cecil.

              She closed her eyes and began reciting some of the longer incantations to spells she’d half learnt from Ramuh. She hoped that in doing so, her mind might unload itself of some of its burdens and settle into sleep.

             “What are you doing?” she heard a deep voice ask, and it broke her out of her reverie.

             She opened her eyes slowly, irritated that she’d been interrupted—especially since she knew who it was that had done it.

            “Practicing spells,” she answered, looking up at Kain.

             “I’m sorry,” he said a bit hurriedly. “It’s just that you looked like…” His words failed him and he shook his head. “It’s nothing—nevermind,” he said finally and left her.

             She raised her brows and watched him walk to the edge of the alcove, peering out into the hallway beyond. He fidgeted with his gauntlets and refused to look back at her or anyone else. She glanced at Cecil and saw him looking at her curiously, a dozing Rosa leaning against his shoulder. His regard surprised her, but she knew why he was interested.

              He was probably relieved that they had spoken since the argument. Cecil wanted her to be able to see the good in Kain, to overlook his shortcomings. She chewed on her lip. As much as she cared for Cecil as a friend, she wasn’t ready to breach that gap.

              Before she could get lost in her own thoughts, Yang was beside her. Apparently, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep either, and he offered her a dry piece of bread.

               “It’s not much, but it’s something,” he said, as she took the proffered bread from his hand.

               “Thank you,” she said, breaking off a smaller piece and munching on it.

               “You look confused,” Yang said after a moment.

               She glanced at Kain again and sighed. “First he keeps his distance, then he tries to open up, and then he moves away again. I can’t decide what he’s up to. Whether he’s being repentant or if he’s staying close for protection.”

              “I haven’t seen him do anything to cause concern,” Yang mused. “In fact, in the weeks I’ve traveled with him, the last few days have been the most enlightening. Whether or not he’s fully on our side, I’m willing to say that he is.”

              “How could you know that?” Rydia asked. “ _You_ don’t trust him, too, do you?”

              “I had my doubts, I still have some. But,” Yang paused, looking over all of them. “We can’t afford to be divided.     It’s dangerous, especially this far into enemy territory. We need each other for survival even if it’s not our choice of company.”

              “What if he’s leading us into a trap?”

              “He isn’t leading us anywhere,” Yang pointed out. “We’re trapped already, really. We can only go up.”

              “I can’t believe I’d eventually have to place my trust in him,” she muttered. “All those years of seeing his face…of knowing what he did to Cecil, to Rosa, and now here we are.”

              “If he begins to act suspiciously, you and I will know. I’ll support you if it means we have to protect ourselves from within—I’ve said that before. For now, we have to admit that staying together is better than being separated. He’s an asset to us now, and until he ceases to be an asset, we have to rely on him.”

              Rydia steepled her fingers against her nose. “I know—I mean—I understand. I just don’t like it.”

              “Get some rest,” he said with a smile. “After all, where would we be without our grown-up Summoner?”

              She snorted. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

              He made a face. “Not any time soon.”

              She rolled her eyes and watched Yang scoot to the other side of the hall. Their brief conversation had done what her recitations couldn’t, and she found her eyelids becoming heavier by the second. Within a few minutes, her exhaustion had taken over and she was asleep.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………

 

              Cecil’s hand on her shoulder shook her awake. Her head shot up, but instantly, she felt fatigue creeping over her senses again. It had only been a few hours since they’d stopped, but Cecil was getting them up again.

              She pulled herself to her feet, grabbing her pack and swinging it over her shoulders, feeling somewhat sick to her stomach. The unbearable march was about to resume.

              The snakes that they had feared for the last few floors finally made their entrance after the group had rounded a few bends. A few of them were frightful to be sure; after all, they were giant creatures with the faces of men but for their long pointed ears and long scaled bodies. In the end, they proved to be not as impressive as their shed skins made them out to be. The five of them made quick work of the beasts, and Cecil led them past several more snake dens with similar success. In the course of their fighting and traveling, they passed many more rooms than they’d seen in several floors. In a few of them they found more equipment that had been left by previous occupants. Even Yang came upon a weapon he could use—a set of what he called “cat claws”. They had long razor sharp metal protrusions that extended a good foot in length. They were different from his other claws, Rydia noticed. They looked more delicate, ornate, but in battle proved to be made of finer metal than anything else he’d used. Against the snakes that slithered down from ceiling beams and around corners, Yang’s new weapon was a boon.

             They had been walking down one straight stretch with doorways on either side for a while and Rydia’s eyes had taken to wandering again. There was one alcove in the hallway cast in shadow from the ceiling lights. She fancied there was something there; lurking in the darkness, but Cecil passed by it without incident and she began to wonder if her nerves were playing tricks on her again. She was about to pass it by herself, but somehow she couldn’t resist.

All it took was one glimpse and the next thing she knew—she was stone.

…………………………………………………………………………

             “Rydia!” Rosa’s voice called out to her. It always seemed to be Rosa’s voice, Rydia thought ruefully.

             She slowly felt her senses return to her and heard the crunching of stone as it crumbled off of her skin.

             “What happened?” she asked, bewildered.

             Rosa didn’t answer, instead she had turned her attention to an exact stone replica of Kain. She began to chant the esuna spell, and Rydia took the moment to look around. The body of a woman lay on the floor, punctured in many places by Cecil’s sword and slashed by Yang’s claws. Blood covered the hall, and where she had expected to see the woman’s head, she saw a mass of snakes, all limp.

            “Don’t look at her eyes,” Cecil told her quickly, making her dart her gaze away.

            “What was that?” she asked again.

            “A Medusa,” Yang supplied. “She turns whoever meets her gaze into stone.”

            Rydia was flustered. “But we were almost past that alcove, what was she waiting for?”

            “Someone to look back,” Kain answered for her, shaking pieces of stone from his armor. “She can’t spring a trap if the victim knows they’re walking into one. Looks like she got us both.”

            Now Rydia was angry, mostly at herself. This was the second time she’d been caught off-guard and she was annoyed that she’d shared the experience with Kain. Far-be-it from her to admit they had something to bond over.

           “Well. That was fun,” she replied sarcastically.

           Cecil assessed the both of them. “As soon as we can find another place to stop, we’ll take a rest.”

            Rydia appreciated this bit of good news and took a few shaky steps forward, testing her newly liberated limbs.

           There would be no more Medusas and no more life threatening encounters for the rest of the present floor or the next two. The group accepted this gratefully, relieved that they could conserve their strength.

           Finally, they paused to rest in another small alcove, and they were all drinking from canteens, when Cecil jerked himself away from the wall he was leaning against and rushed forward.

                Rydia followed his movement with her eyes, searching the hallway for what he had seen. There was a swish of gold and the swipe of a tail, and she sensed the unmistakable presence of an Eidolon. At that, Rydia sat up straight, setting her canteen aside. Was it Black? She stood to join Cecil, and they both caught each others’ eye.

                “Couerls,” he said quietly. “I think they’re following us.”

                Rydia stared into the hallway, and saw another great feline bound into view. It was as though time slowed down for an instant, and the span between the creature landing one stride and beginning another, was enough for Rydia to be taken aback.

                Magic. Powerful magic. Illusion. It struck her so hard, it stole her breath away. It had looked at her, and she at it, and for a millisecond, they’d had an understanding. The creature’s eyes were a stormy blue and filled with consciousness.

                Without thinking, Rydia laid a hand on Cecil’s arm, halting him.

                She couldn’t pry her eyes away from the spot in the hallway where the creature was now absent, but she knew Cecil was looking at her inquisitively.

                “I assume you have a reason for not letting me draw my sword.”

                “They’re no threat to us,” she said, breathlessly.

                Cecil shifted to face her better, and Rydia finally brought her eyes to meet his. They were somewhere between blue and lavender, and she realized for the first time, how anxious he was about surviving this place. “Rydia…are you alright?”

                She knew that for him, it must seem strange that she would be acting this way. What would she think, if he or any of the others suddenly decided that a fire breathing dragon was harmless?

                “That wasn’t a couerl,” she said finally. “I don’t know who or what it was, but it most definitely wasn’t a fiend, and it wasn’t some mindless creature. The other creature you saw, the first couerl, was an Eidolon, though I’d hardly call him a couerl…he’s somewhat different…it’s hard to explain.”

                “How could you tell from so far away?”

                Rydia shook her head. “I can sense it. And I know for a fact that there was someone of interest to the Feymarch within this tower.”

                “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

                “Because we have our mission and the Feymarch has its own. That Eidolon is a friend of mine. I trust him with my life.”

                “I’ve never seen you summon an Eidolon such as that.”

                “He hasn’t given me leave to summon him. He comes and goes of his own accord.”

                “Just like a cat,” Cecil wryly observed.

                “Just like a cat,” Rydia agreed.


	11. Chapter 11

The silence of the hallway was deafening, and the emptiness of it made Rydia glad that they continued moving as soon as they did. Where they had last paused to rest, the tower hallways had been a maze of eerie dead-ends and flickering lights, but they soon left it behind to return to the relatively well-lit mechanical landscape to which they’d become accustomed. It seemed that every few levels, the surroundings and layouts of the floors changed. They’d become steadily more alien and Rydia knew that this and the appearance of Black was a positive sign.

                She shared this revelation with Cecil, and afterwards, it was obvious that the pace of their journey had picked up. It didn’t matter that what awaited them most definitely involved battle—that there were still impossible decisions and actions to be made. They cast off those thoughts in favor of another—being done with the Tower.

                The enthusiasm only lasted for a few hours.

                They’d experienced false hope many floors earlier, but Rydia felt certain this time that their goal was in sight. She felt foolish as floor passed floor that they still saw no sign of the crystals or the strange doctor’s lab. The notion of “closeness” to their destination became a relative term.

                “Are you sure it was an Eidolon you saw?” Cecil asked after a considerable lapse in conversation. “It could have been a fiend, or one of Golbez’s spies.”

“I know what I saw,” came Rydia’s brisk reply. “He wouldn’t be coming back down the tower if he hadn’t found what he was looking for.”

“It’s been hours.”

“He has four legs and can move past fiends quicker than we can.”

“Rydia…”

“We’re getting close!” She insisted, planting both hands on her hips and stopping to stare at him.

                For a moment they just looked at each other, neither budging. Cecil finally let out a quick sigh and turned away, walking in long strides.

It had been a long while since their last rest and the effect on everyone’s moods was apparent.

                “It feels like we’ve been walking for months,” Rosa groaned, at one point.

                The fair-haired woman was not in the best of sorts—none of them were. None of them smelled their best either, she observed, wrinkling her nose. No baths for days—weeks—oh, what she wouldn’t give for a bath…

                Finally, for the first time since they began their ascent, did Cecil find a place where he felt confident they could truly rest. The moment they stepped into the room, Rydia felt the tingle of protective wards. Her relief was so great, she felt tears well up at the corners of her eyes.

                “A waystation,” Kain said almost reverently. “There doesn’t seem to be very many of them in this entire tower.”

                “Even Golbez’s attendants need safe havens now and again?” Cecil wondered aloud.

                “When he can’t control the fiends, anyway,” Kain muttered.

                Rydia let out a tremendous sigh and sprawled out on the floor.

“It’s so good not to be moving!” she said ecstatically.

                Cecil smiled tiredly, removing his pack. They all ended up on the floor eventually, loosening armor, removing helmets. Yang sat in a corner with his legs crossed and eyes closed, meditating. Rydia hadn’t seen him meditate in weeks and was happy to see some semblance of their old rituals returning.

                She in turn stared at the ceiling. The lights were strange, somewhat honey-combed, and a brilliant blue-ish hue. She thought about reciting incantations, but she was too tired to do any serious thinking.

                “How long do you think it’s been since we started climbing?” Rosa asked.

                “Days,” Kain replied, deadpan.

                Rydia turned her head to look at them. Each of them was sitting with their eyes closed, minds elsewhere.

                “If I don’t sleep I’m going to lose my mind,” Rosa said at length. “I won’t be able to cast anymore spells. I’ll be of no use to anyone.”

                “We’re staying here,” Cecil assured her, un-strapping his bedroll and spreading it out on the tile floor for emphasis. “All of us need to sleep.”  

Rydia’s thoughts on the matter were Rosa’s to a tee. She was grateful to finally be able to rest without being woken up within a few minutes.

                She sat up and began un-strapping her own bedroll. Spreading it out on the floor, she had time to realize how exhausted she really was. Every muscle and inch of skin ached, right down to the roots of her hair.

                Her head had barely touched the bedroll and she had already drifted away.

 

………………………………..

 

A concussive booming woke her up several hours later. The room shook and the lights above flickered and buzzed uncertainly. Rydia cracked her eyes open and looked around in confusion. Many minutes passed but nothing happened. Thinking she’d been imagining things, she tried going back to sleep, but the moment she closed her eyes again, the booming returned. It sounded like the tower was falling apart around them, and she sat up with a start. Everyone else was awake by then as well, staring at each other and at the ceiling.

“What is that?” Cecil demanded.

Kain shook his head wordlessly.

In total, five more ground shaking blasts shook the room. After stunned silence, and a generous amount of time, Cecil announced that they should attempt sleep again.

Rydia tried to sleep, but her mind was troubled. What on earth had that been? They were bound to come near whatever it was once they woke, but what would it turn out to be and would they be able to get past it?

After hours of restless sleep, Cecil finally woke them up for good. Bleary eyes were the common sight, and no one seemed pleased to move forward. Nonetheless, everything was packed, armor donned, and weapons readied.

Their climb became more uncertain when the floor continued to shake. They stopped to listen and decided that whatever it was, was coming from somewhere not far above.

One very steep six-flighted staircase took them to a completely different part of the tower than they’d been used to. This level was colder, more mechanical, if that were possible.

The ceiling loomed to vaulted heights above them, lights suspended down from long cords and all were brilliantly lit. There was no refuse from fiends littering the tile, no claw marks on the walls, nothing to indicate that monsters infested this level. Some distance ahead there was an enormous cylindrical structure spanning the gap from one wall to another. Beneath it stood scaffolding that must have been over a hundred feet long.

None of them could make heads or tails of it, but when they were halfway toward reaching the cylinder, the booming that had shaken the floor for the last few hours struck again. It was so loud in this cavernous room that all of them dove to the floor with their hands over their ears.

“This is what’s causing the noise,” Yang said after a few minutes.

“What is that thing?” Cecil asked, still pressing a finger into one ear.

“I don’t know, but we won’t find out by just standing here,” Kain said, walking forward.

There was a gap in the scaffolding beneath the cylinder where a hallway ran. Curious to see where it led, the group walked toward it. When they reached its entrance, the floor changed to a narrow metal grated gangway. A chasm surrounded the gangway on each side, like being suspended over a dark cloud.

At the other end they could see a large door that stood closed with blinking red and blue lights running along the edges.

“Kain and I will see what’s over there. The rest of you, wait here,” Cecil instructed, adjusting the shield on his back to center his balance.

Rydia watched the two men walk cautiously across the grated walkway. It seemed stable enough, but when the cylinder overhead boomed again, all of them fell to their knees and the metal walkway seemed to jump from its supports.

“Cecil, be careful!” Rosa called when the din of the blast had subsided.

He looked back and gave her a reassuring nod, though Rydia could tell that he was visibly shaken.

The two knights crept slowly along the catwalk until they’d reached the doorway. They pushed, pulled, shoved, and banged, but the door wouldn’t open.

Kain turned to Cecil and said something, but Rydia couldn’t make it out. What she _could_ decipher was that there was no getting through the door. Cecil and Kain rejoined them on solid ground and explained the situation.

“The door requires a key, and without it, there’s no getting past it,” Kain told them dourly.

“A key?” Rosa asked. “Could the crystals be behind that door?”

“It’s possible,” Kain admitted, “But there’s nothing we can do without the key.”

“The most likely person to have it would be the Doctor Kain told us about,” Cecil supplied.

“So we _are_ getting close,” Yang observed.

Cecil nodded toward Rydia. “Looks like you were right, after all.”

She smiled sweetly at him, reveling in her small victory.

“But what is that above us, and what is that booming?” Yang asked again, pointing at the cylinder.

They all looked up at it, baffled.

“I don’t think we’ll have any answers until we get to the ‘Zoo’,” Kain answered.

Stymied, but not defeated, they returned to the main hallway. They followed it to a smaller door and began another climb up a staircase of many flights. The booming shook the staircase for a while and then faded as they left it deep below. It wasn’t until they’d emerged from the stairwell, that they realized how close they truly were to ending their climb. In fact, they had arrived at precisely where they needed and dreaded to be.

 

…………………………..

 

 

Cleanliness. On every surface, in every room. Compared to the Feymarch or even the Dwarf Castle, it was like stepping into another world; an inorganic alien world.

                They tread quietly not wanting to surprise whoever might have been lurking in the rooms. Kain had tensed, and Rosa also. No one said much of anything, keeping their eyes peeled.

                The booming had become a distant rumble that Rydia would feel through the floor as they walked between rows of flat metal tables with bits and pieces of mechanisms spread atop them.

                They went down another narrower hallway. The lights were on in this entire level, making it seem occupied, though they found no living soul. Tables began to litter the hallways as well. There were nuts, bolts and scrap, gears and tools laying about.

                “Odd,” Kain said mostly to himself, “Always thought he had help, but there’s no one here.”

                Rooms led to more rooms, and they found the entire place larger than they expected.

                Soon the contents of the tables changed, becoming morbid and grim. Rydia tried to keep her gaze pinned ahead, but on one occasion her eyes slipped. She very nearly retched.

                Eyes, tongues, fluids, phials. Rosa slipped her arm through the crook of Rydia’s elbow and pulled her onward.

                “Is this ‘the Zoo’?” Rydia whispered to Kain.

                He nodded without looking at her.

                She felt cold. None of the dangerous encounters they’d had in the climb prepared her for what could be waiting for them here.

                They’d walked a good distance down a large hall when a blood curdling scream tore through the air. Everyone jumped.

                “That sounded like a person—a woman,” Rosa choked out. She was visibly shaken, her hand trembling as she reached for her bow.

                Rydia peered into every corner, her nerves taut.

                “It could be anything,” Kain reminded them.

                “What if it’s a prisoner?” Cecil asked.

                Kain shook his head. “I know it’s cruel, but there’s no point. They’re already lost.”

                “How could you know that?”

“Whoever he’s found is probably already dead or soon will be—he doesn’t like to keep people alive for long. You don’t hear hopeless screams like that very often.”

                Yang gave him a questioning look.

                “Spend enough time around Golbez and you recognize the sounds,” Kain elaborated.

                That gave all of them pause. Rydia swallowed hard.

                “Besides,” Kain went on, “We came here for another reason. We barely made it here ourselves, we couldn’t possibly take anyone back with us.”

                Cecil looked displeased, but he didn’t pursue the matter. Instead, he kept his sword drawn.

                They crossed six long rooms in total from what seemed to be the main hall, and when they entered the seventh, Rydia nearly screamed herself. On a far table she thought she saw a human arm separated at the shoulder along with the remnants of other creatures.

                No one moved for a long moment. It was clear they were trying to marshal their emotions.

                Cecil took a few slow steps forward.

                “We have to keep moving,” he whispered. “We have to find the Doctor, if we’re to find the key to that room.”

                They followed him onward through piles of propellers and large metal pipes, carefully placing their feet so as not to make any noise.

                Soon enough they heard voices.

                They crept toward a large sliding door that stood open, leading into a huge work shop with another metal grated gangway that spanned half of the floor space.

                There was a shorter man standing where the gangway ended in the center of the room. He had scraggly white hair and wore a dingy white coat and was facing a man—a giant really—wearing grand red armor.

“Do be careful, Rubicante, my lord,” the shorter man said in a sniveling manner.

“There is no need for concern,” the Archfiend assured him. “Eblan’s castle has already fallen, and its Ninja forces with it. I trust matters here to you until my return.”

They watched as Rubicante moved away from the Doctor and stepped onto a large platform. The doctor pressed a switch and the other man disappeared completely in a bright flash of light.

Rydia’s eyes were consumed with a strange purple after-glow and she was baffled. What kind of magic was _that?_ It was different from any teleportation spell she’d ever seen. They watched as the doctor stood in complete silence for a moment, staring into the empty space where his compatriot had once stood.

All of a sudden he began to jump up and down, clapping his hands. “Wee hee hee! Lord Golbez and Rubicante both gone, and only I at home! I’m lord of the tower now!”

“That’s a strange one,” Rydia muttered.

“Shh!” Rosa hissed quietly, but not quietly enough.

“Who’s there!?” the doctor shrieked, whirling around.

All of them ducked behind the wall before he could spot them.

They could hear his footsteps as he inched toward the doorway,

                “Is it you?” he asked, seeming to think it was someone he knew. “Have you come back?”

                Cecil looked at Rosa. In fact, all of them were exchanging confused glances.

                “I told you there was no use running—there’s nowhere to go! Now come here, we have work to do!” he ordered shrilly.

When no one answered, he began stuttering. “T-the one time you have nothing to say! I-it was you who forced me to take drastic measures in the first place! It was regrettable that I had to do what I did, but you knew the consequences!”

Rydia gave Cecil an incredulous look. “Has he lost his mind?” she whispered.

Kain nodded, rolling his eyes.

At last Cecil decided there was no use hiding and enduring the awkward one-sided conversation. He stood, stepping beyond the doorway.

“You’re not!—“ he sputtered and then gazed at the rest of them. “Who are you people?! He looked at Cecil, at his armor and sword, and his mouth fell open. “You’re that Cecil louse, aren’t you? When in toadspittle did you squirm your way in!?”

Kain moved past Cecil, leveling his spear at the doctor, “Where are the crystals!” he demanded.

The doctor almost burst out laughing, readjusting his spectacles. “Crystals! I create a great many wonders for Golbez and all anyone can talk about are those confounded crystals!”

“They must be somewhere close by if you’re here,” Kain pressed.

“Do you really think so? I’m afraid I can’t help you with the crystals, but first thing’s first, do you think I’m going to let you get away with this trespass?”

“Rubicante’s not here to help you. Are you sure you want to press your luck against us?

He squinted at Kain. “Wait a moment, weren’t you Golbez’s pet?  Aren’t you on the wrong side? And press my luck!? Gah—the outrage! The belittlement! Do you have any idea to whom you’re speaking? I’m Dr. Lugae! I may not be one of… _them_ , but Golbez made me his chief strategist for a reason! I can keep this tower clean of vermin like you!”

“I’d like to see you try!” Kain shouted. There was bravado in his voice, but Rydia heard a slight tremor in it as well. This couldn’t be the same man who had conducted such inhumane experiments as the ones they’d seen. He didn’t seem capable of them…He was mad to be sure, but he looked too weak to hurt a fly.

“You made the mistake of challenging the mad scientist in his lab! Oh ho ho! You will regret this!” the doctor shouted, pulling a strange object out of his pocket and pressing buttons. “My beautiful little boy will have your heads for playthings!”

“The crystals!” Cecil shouted.

“You’ll have to pass through me first, and that’s not going to happen! Balnab!” the Doctor cried over his shoulder.

A mechanical doll, that was the best description Rydia could think of, came to life amid a heap of metal near the doorframe and walked to the Doctor’s side.

                Rydia eyed it warily. She’d never seen anything quite like it, and wondered what it was going to do.

                “Attack them!” the Doctor shouted, pointing a shaking finger at them.

                The doll took a halting step, and then turned, hands pivoting toward the Doctor. The little man’s eyes widened and he held up both hands.

“No!” he shouted, but his robotic fiend had already fired his fists on their springs.

                They grazed the Doctor’s shoulder as the old man jumped to the side a moment too late. It was enough to knock him to the floor.

                “No!” the Doctor shouted again. “Attack them over there! Curse that child,” he muttered.

                The mechanical doll turned toward them.

                Cecil raised his shield and the rest of them raised their weapons. Rosa was softly chanting at Rydia’s side, and Rydia wondered what she could do. She looked at Cecil and caught his eye.

                “Who do we attack? She asked. “The doll or the Doctor?”

                “Both would be helpful,” he said under his breath.

                She gave him an exasperated look, and set her attention on a spell that would disrupt the doll. She’d been working on the spell for a while, trying to coax more power from it, and now she tried it in earnest—the thundaga spell.

                She chanted layer upon layer of incantations, asking for more of the crystals’ strength than ever before.

                It was a lengthy business, and she tried to tuck herself to the back of the battle line to avoid injury before the spell’s completion. She blocked out the shouts of her comrades, the sound of metal against metal and even Rosa’s voice. She lost herself in her own incantation.

And finally, like rain from a clear sky, a bolt of lightning exploded down from the ceiling—the air sizzling and heavy with electricity. It struck both the Doctor and his creature, knocking the Doctor to a senseless heap of white robes on the floor.

                The machine was sparking—it’s movements sporadic.

                “Oil,” it bellowed, beginning to smoke at the joints.

                Rydia hadn’t noticed that Cecil’s leg was bleeding through his armor or that Rosa was on the ground clutching her ribs. She hadn’t realized how close the machine had gotten to them while she’d been chanting, so when it suddenly exploded, sending hot metal shrapnel in every direction—she finally felt the full shock of it.

                Sharp metal sliced through her robes and the leather vest she wore like they were made of air. Spots flooded her vision. She and Yang both fell to the floor in unison, losing consciousness along the way. For a few frightening moments, she thought she was dead. Everything around her was dark, light, and then she felt something heavy pulling her backwards, as if from against a great wave.

She dully heard Rosa’s voice calling her name, though it sounded like she was calling from miles away. When at last she opened her eyes, she was still laying on the floor. Blood mixed with blackened oil across the tile and sharp pieces of metal were still clinging to her robes. She pushed herself to her knees and saw that the Doctor was gone, but in his place stood a ghastly metal skeleton with the doctor’s face stretched upon its head.

                “What—” she blurted out.

                “Rydia—cast thunder!” Rosa cried.

                She had time only to notice that Yang and Cecil still lay on the floor, blood pooling around their bodies, before she began the incantation and felt herself grow ill as a strange gas poured over the floor.

                She released a hasty thundara spell but it didn’t seem to affect him at all.

                She gave Rosa a frightened look. “I don’t know what—“

                “Look out!” Kain yelled, running in front of Rosa and bashing a monstrous claw away from her.

                “Kain,” Rosa breathed, relieved.

                He couldn’t dodge a second blow from the Doctor’s newfound reach and tumbled backwards. He got right up again, unharmed. He stared at his armor in confusion.

                “He can’t harm us, and we can’t harm him?” Rydia asked.

                “I can’t bring them back!” Rosa said, dismayed, turning their attention to Cecil and Yang. There was a hitch in her throat and Rydia took that to be a bad sign. It took a lot for Rosa to panic, and she had never seen one of the white mage’s spells fail.

                Rosa tried again, while Kain did his best to shield them from the Doctor’s attacks. She cast cura, but when the green glow would have brought healing, Rydia felt old wounds begin to open up again.

                “Everything’s backwards!” Rydia gasped. “Rosa, stop casting!”

                Rosa looked at her in disbelief.

                “I’m going to try something,” Rydia assured her.

                Rydia began chanting a simple spell, the thunder spell, and released it on herself experimentally. She instantly felt a bit better, like being infused with energy.

                But the Doctor wasn’t wasting time—he cast a spell on them that had the tang of white magic.

                Rosa fell to the floor, barely conscious and Rydia was seeing spots again. She immediately began another incantation, focusing on the three of them.

                There wasn’t much time.

                The last word of the blizzara spell flowed off her tongue and she found herself in the middle of a very strange experience.

                She had never turned one of her more powerful spells on herself before, and being encased in ice like a frozen cocoon was at once terrifying and comforting. She felt it against her skin—but it wasn’t cold, it was warm. The water melted and flowed onto her skin like a salve. Her hurts were forgotten and then the ice was gone in a vapor. Rosa gasped and stood up, frost still clinging to her eyelashes.

                Rosa gave Rydia an appreciative nod, and then pursed her lips while she dodged one of the Doctor’s skeletal hands and dove back to the floor.

                Kain moved in front of her, raising his shield. He glanced at Rosa.

                “I can’t do anything,” he muttered.

                “That gas that spilled over the floor,” Rydia pointed out. “It’s done something to our magic! If we can get him to counteract it, our magic will work properly again!”

 

                Kain took that information with a leap. He shot into the air like a blue arrow and landed a few moments later behind the Doctor’s back. The Doctor, realizing his sudden peril, swung wildly behind him, but Kain had found what he was looking for—a metal canister affixed to the Doctor’s back that he punctured violently with his spear. Gas poured over the floor once again, and Rydia felt the heaviness—the wrongness—in the air return to normal.

 

                “He did it!” Rydia cried, and began to summon the most logical Eidolon she could think of, while Rosa revived Cecil and Yang as quickly as she could.

 

                Cecil pulled himself up from the floor as Hellfire heated the room and Ifrit’s monstrous roar echoed against the walls.

 

                Fire rained down from above and the Doctor’s remaining flesh melted away from the metallic skeleton he’d constructed as a mockery of his former life. The metal became pocked and damaged from the heat of Ifrit’s assault, but he still remained alive.

 

                Ifrit spared Rydia a disdainful look before he dissipated into nothingness as if to question why she hadn’t called earlier, but she had few thoughts left to attend. Within the next few minutes, a flurry of movement overwhelmed her senses. The sound of sword against metal, claws scraping and tearing, and the concussion of Kain’s leaps became a din in the cavernous room. Rosa cast spell after spell, an unceasing tide of word weaving, and Rydia herself joined the fray once she’d found her balance.

 

                Blood splattered across the tile floor and more oil joined it. Men versus machine, but it was the men who prevailed in the end. The Doctor’s legs collapsed beneath him, snapping into a ruined heap of metal. There was a surprised expression on the metal mockery of his face, but he began an odd gurgling cackle.

 

                “Gone—all gone! My research, my life’s work!” he rasped. “You came all this way and ruined my plans, but Rubicante’s already moved the Crystals out of your reach! Now none of you will escape here alive—none of you—and there’s nothing you can do to save the Dwarves! The super cannon will make quick work of them with the new ordinance I’ve just had loaded. There will be no more resistance to stand in Golbez’s path. You’ll have nowhere to run!” he said with a gasp, falling silent with those words.

                “The cannons? Could that have been the rumbling we heard? The Dwarves won’t survive a bombardment like that!” Rosa exclaimed. 

                Cecil approached the Doctor’s body and noticed something shining on the ground. He picked it up, and saw it was a flat piece of metal with several unique grooves and holes.

                “A key!” Kain explained.

                “A key to the room we passed?” Cecil asked.

                “Seems likely.”

                “We have to hurry!” Yang said, quickly turning toward the way they’d come.

                They sprinted through the Doctor’s lab, weaving between tables, ignoring the baying of creatures in rooms they had no desire to explore. They leapt down the stairs toward the strange room with the booming cylinder in it and didn’t stop running until they had crossed the catwalk that led to the previously locked door.

                Cecil stood puzzled before the door for a moment. Kain took the key from his hand and slid it into a narrow groove that Rydia would never have guessed was a keyhole.

                The door slid open slowly, and inside the room, three imps who had been surprised by the sound, turned away from a large mechanical console. They looked like they’d been expecting someone else.

                “Who are you!” an imp at the forefront demanded. “You’re not the doctor’s assistant!”

                “Step away from the console!” Cecil snarled, pointing his sword at the imp.

                The imp began to laugh. “You can’t give me orders! Only Golbez can tell me what to do. Get ‘em, boys!” he commanded, waving his comrades forward.

                These imps were taller and stouter than Rydia recalled their cousins on the magma plains to be. They advanced as a menacing trio, daggers drawn. One looked bent on doing a number on her, but the men had their weapons drawn and were not about to be pushed aside.

                A brief skirmish ensued, but the imps were no match for two knights and a monk. They fell to the floor bleeding and angry.

 

                Cecil held the tip of his blade against the throat of the lead imp. “Disarm the cannon!”

 

                The imp stumbled to his feet and limped grudgingly to the console with Cecil’s blade never hovering too far away.

 

                Rydia watched intently. They had to stop the cannons for the sake of the Dwarves!

 

                The imp pressed a few buttons and an alarm began to sound overhead.

                “You can’t stop us!” the imp declared. “There’s no halting the cannons now!”

                Cecil, realizing their predicament, found no reason to keep the imp alive and brought his sword down in one merciless arc. Yang and Kain made quick work of the other two.

                “They’ve sabotaged the cannon!” Cecil yelled, his frustration taking over.

“Is there nothing we can do!?” Kain demanded, running over to the console and trying to make sense of the buttons.

“There’s an abort lever on this side!” Yang announced to Rydia’s immense relief.

“Pull it!” Cecil shouted from across the room.

Yang pulled the lever down and the alarm ceased. It was replaced instead by a flashing red light and a strange tinny voice:

 

_WARNING. EMERGENCY ABORT. EMERGENCY ABORT. ORDINANCE CRITICAL. OVERLOAD IMMINENT._

 

“We did it!” Rosa cried, “But now we have to get out of here!”

Yang released the lever and began to walk toward them, but the lever immediately assumed its former position. The voice changed:

 

_SEQUENCE RESUMED. OVERLOAD AVERTED. LAUNCH IN TWO MINUTES COUNTING._

 

“A dead man switch?!” Kain shouted.

 The voice had begun an ominous count-down, and for a few seconds of sheer panic, no one moved.

Rydia felt as if the world had stopped turning, as if something momentous and dreadful was about to happen.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Yang.

“I will take care of things in here,” he said with a resoluteness that frightened her. “The rest of you get out!”

“Are you mad?” Rydia shouted at him.

“Forgive me…” he said, looking backing at them, letting his gaze linger on her in particular.

“Don’t be a fool!” Kain argued, gesticulating wildly. “We can figure out how to rig it!”

“We only have two minutes,” Yang said quietly. “Now get out before the explosion takes us all!”

Rydia was about to run forward, to reach out to him and stop him from doing what she’d read in his eyes, when he suddenly thrust out his arm. His hand caught her flat on the chest and pushed her backwards, out through the door. Within an instant, the others had joined her, thrown backwards by the force of a kick.

He stood just inside the doorway, hand on a switch on the wall. He pressed it and the door began to close.

“Yang, no!” Rosa cried.

“Yang!” Cecil shouted, rising to his feet and banging futilely against the door just as it closed.

“If you should see my wife again, tell her to live enough for us both!” they heard him shout past the door.

“Open the door!” Kain barked.

“It has been an honor, fighting with all of you,” he said finally.

He didn’t speak again, but they once again heard the warning system overhead, announcing an imminent overload. The countdown resumed from two minutes.

“We need to get off of this gangway,” Cecil said urgently, angrily, getting them all to their feet.

They stumbled more than ran, diving onto solid floor as a loud explosion shook the entire space.

This explosion was so violent that the entire cylinder seemed to buckle on top of the scaffolding. Fire spread down the column that the control room had been connected to and smoke billowed out from the control room door. The gangway that they had just crossed was gone, shaken from its supports and lost to the fiery depths of whatever chain reaction the abort had caused within the mechanism of the cannons.

Rydia’s heart caught in her throat. She couldn’t breathe and could only stare through tears at the smoke pouring across the chasm between them and where Yang had been.

“No,” she whispered.

“Dammit!” Cecil shouted, punching the floor.

Rosa knelt beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

Tears were slipping down her cheeks.

Rydia was too stunned to do anything.

“Why! Why!” Cecil shouted. His voice was lost in the continued rumbling as more explosions spread down through the cannon’s underbelly.

For several minutes, no one said anything and no one moved. It felt like an eternity when Cecil stood.

“We need to keep moving,” he forced out.

Rydia felt herself being lifted to her feet. Kain was behind her, holding her arms, and he gave her a grim look.

“It should have been me,” he muttered darkly.

No one answered until the words cut through the fog of Rydia’s thoughts.

“Yes, it should have been,” she said coldly, whirling to face him properly, all her frustrations boiling to the surface.

“He had a wife! He had a home and people who expected him to return! And he protected me! You were a traitor!—” she cried, losing her words as tears began pouring down her cheeks and she began pounding her fists against his chest. They thudded against his metal breastplate ineffectually.

He just gazed down sadly, unable to speak, still gripping her arms.

When it seemed her energy was spent, he released her and she spun away. Everyone was too lost in their own grief to comment on her outburst.

“We failed,” Cecil said slowly, distantly.

They all looked at him.

“Now what?” Rosa asked, dazedly. “Golbez will soon find out that the Doctor is dead. When he does, he’s bound to tighten his security.”

“We have no choice but to re-group and find another way into the tower from higher up,” Kain answered.

“Could Cid help us?” Rosa asked.

“First we have to report to King Giott,” Cecil said dully. “We have to let him know how completely and utterly we’ve failed.”

Rosa looked at the smoke filled room unhappily.

“All that climbing just to go all the way back down…”

Rydia chewed her lip between tearful hiccups. “There’s…there’s a spell I could use,” she said haltingly. “It won’t take us the whole way down, but it should help.”

Rosa glanced at her. “You have such a spell?”

Rydia nodded and took a deep breath. “If it works.”

Rosa, her curiosity winning over her fatigue, walked to Rydia’s side and placed a gloved hand on her shoulder.

“Explain to me what you’re planning,” she insisted.

Rydia explained as best she could, and the four of them joined hands while she chanted.

She pictured a place in her mind where she wanted to go—a place she remembered. The spell would only work so long as she had a clear memory of each location. She knew she could get them far down the tower, but she didn’t have the ability as Rosa had, to transport them all in one go. She would have to cast several times.

She stilled her mind, focusing, and the room around them melted away. Her eyes were closed, but she was seeing with her mind, sliding through the floor and slipping down through layers of metal to reach a place several floors below. It was a doorway they’d paused under hours earlier.

The moment they arrived, she began the next chant and the process began again.

They must have descended several dozen floors before her memory failed and her energy was all but spent.

Cecil clapped her on the shoulder as she nearly swooned.

“Good work,” he praised her. “I think I remember this floor. It was close to the bottom of the tower.”

“There are no more ethers,” Rosa said apologetically after sifting through her pack.

Rydia closed her eyes and sighed. She would have to battle the old-fashioned way.

She shifted the weight of her pack and began walking.

Cecil seemed to know which way he was going, and being in this part of the tower again after so many days felt nostalgic.

It was less nostalgic when they passed the scavenged corpses of monsters they’d slain. The stench was overpowering. Nonetheless, they traveled swiftly, winding through hallways by following the trail of bodies.

 

At last they reached the level where the heat struck them like a wave.

We’re close to the exit!” Rosa cried.

“We have to at least tell Hrothgar what we’ve learned,” Cecil said, picking up his pace.

They had just stepped onto the gangway that plummeted down to the ground, when a ghostly voice stopped them in their tracks.

_You are even more meddlesome than I had thought._

“Golbez!” Cecil said, turning to look for the dark knight, but not finding him.

_Mice are wont to play while the cat is away. But I am afraid our game of cat and mouse is at an end. The time has come for us to part ways. Farewell!_

Silence fell and each of them tensed, expecting an attack.

“Cecil!” Rosa suddenly shouted, pointing back at where the gangway joined the tower’s main floor.

They all looked where she was pointing and understood immediately. The planking was detaching and falling hundreds of feet below.

“Run!” Cecil shouted with an urgency that couldn’t be denied.

They sprinted down the gangway, sweat beading on their skin.

                Rydia, her exhaustion taking over, began to stumble.

She barely heard Cecil shout “Jump!” over the rattling of the planks and the rush of wind in her ears. She barely realized someone was holding her fast as her feet left solid ground and she was propelled high into the air.

When she realized what _had_ happened, the sensation of falling had taken over and her heart felt like it had jolted up her throat. She closed her eyes, terrified; but then, for reasons she didn’t quite understand, she opened them again. Maybe it was an insane desire to see the end before it came, but her eyes were definitely open when she saw an airship come into view.

She’d never been aboard one before and seeing one coming closer brought a moment of elation.

Maybe they wouldn’t fall to their doom! She made the mistake of glancing at the propellers spinning dangerously around and immediately felt panic creeping over her again.

She closed her eyes, bracing for pain; pain that never came.

A heavy thud met her feet and she felt her own weight on her legs. She was standing on solid ground, and someone had just set her down.

She cracked her eyes open slowly and looked around. The propellers spun furiously overhead, but there they were, safely standing on the deck of the airship. They’d made it!

“Welcome aboard!” A boisterous voice erupted from the captain’s wheel.

“Cid!” Cecil and Rosa both called out to him happily.

Cid smirked as the five of them climbed the airship’s stairs to reach him. “Didn’t think I’d make it in time!” he told them.

He was about to ask Cecil something, when his expression changed. He glanced back at the tower. “Trouble coming!” he shouted, pressing levers and spinning the captain’s wheel. The ship turned and sped off, hot air buffeting Rydia  in the face. She held onto the railing for dear life, searching the skies for what had spurred Cid into action. Two ships. They had entered a steep dive from the tower’s heights and were gaining on them.

She turned back to her companions, and saw Cid looking at her through his thick goggles. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“This is Rydia, a Summoner of Mist,” Cecil explained.

“Well, then! The more the merrier—wait—“ he interrupted himself, looking around. “Where’s Yang?”

 Rydia felt hot tears stinging her eyes and was glad it was Rosa who answered.

“Yang, he—”

“To save the Dwarves, he gave his life,” Cecil supplied.

“Another good man lost,” Cid said, shaking his head.

The booming of cannonfire and the convulsion of the ship as it was struck made all of them look back.

“They’re hot on our trail! C’mon Enterprise!” Cid shouted.

They sped over rock and magma, away from the Dwarves and their tanks—away from the Tower.

“They’re gaining! Can’t you lose them?” Kain cried, leaning against the railing.

“They must have modified the Red Wings!” Cid bellowed.

Rydia peered over the railing as well, hair whipping against her skin. “We’ll never be able to land!”

“They’re after you, not the Dwarves—”

“What do we do?” Cecil shouted. “Wait—Cid are you heading for the crater to the overworld?”

Cid nodded his head vehemently. “The engines can’t take this! Cecil, take over!”

“What are you doing?” Cecil demanded, taking over the wheel.

“Once you reach the surface, I’ll seal off that hole for good—with this!” he explained, holding up a bundle of red explosives with cords running down from them on one end.

“No! Not you, too!” Rosa cried, swaying on her feet as the ship was fired upon and lurched violently.

 “You couldn’t get the crystals, but you stuck a mighty big thorn in the lion’s paw. I say you need another go from a direction he won’t expect. Fly to Baron and speak to my engineers.”

“What about you?”

Cid just smiled and walked down the stairs to the ship’s side railing.

“I was hoping to see your children, but, well, somebody has to keep Yang company.”

He looked Rydia dead in the eyes. “Look after ‘em, will ya?”

She nodded automatically, watching helplessly as he climbed over the railing holding the strange bundle to his chest with one arm.

“Keep her steady, Cecil, and have my boys go to work for you. I’ll stop these bastards with this bomb!”

No one said anything for one stunned minute and then everything poured out at once.

“What!?”

“Cid, you can’t!”

“I’ve made up my mind!

“You had a bomb on board just in case of a situation like this?!” Kain demanded.

“I like living on the edge! Now get out of here!” he shouted as the ship plowed upward, propellers straining against gravity.

They had all been nearly flattened to the decking, but just as Kain was regaining his footing and began a dash for Cid, the man jumped ship.

“Bombs away!” he cried jubilantly.

“Cid!” Rosa screamed, running toward the railing.

“Try stopping this, Golbez! My once-in-a-lifetime unaided flight!” his words trailed back to them and then were lost in a large cracking boom, like thunder. Light flashed brilliantly, heat following, and then they were caught in the aftershock of the explosion, shooting high into the air like a rocket.

The blast shook loose the rocks that created the entrance to the overworld and the sounds of earth splintering and cracking became a cacophonous symphony. Rydia looked up and saw the speck of blue that marked the sky. It was still woefully far away, and an earthquake had begun sending rocks falling down on them in great numbers.

“Cecil, the rocks!” Kain said, pointing upward.

“I know!” Cecil shouted back, steering wildly.

Kain, evidently not convinced, began launching himself into the air, bashing stones into pebbles. Rosa began to cast protect, creating a shield around the propellers as they continued to climb.

Rydia could only cover her head as she was showered with pebbles, unable to cast, unable to do anything.

“Can’t this ship go any faster?” Kain hollered.

“I’m giving it all she’s got!” Cecil shouted back.

And it was with a great final push from the engines that they broke away from the dark chasm. Rydia felt sunlight on her skin just before the dust cloud from the explosion followed them up and covered the sky.

They flew until they were above water and the engines began to lurch in protest.

Cecil slowed the ship to a halt as all of them turned to look back at the mountain as it collapsed.

“Cid,” Rosa choked out.

“Rushing to die like fools!” Kain anguished, slamming his fists into the railing.

Rydia held on to the decking, fingers digging into the divots and getting slivers from the wood.

“Cid, Yang—why do I keep losing everyone?” she whispered.

She peered up with bleary eyes at Rosa who was staring at the plume of dust in the distance. There was a fierce expression on her face—anger, grief, and disbelief all in one.

How could they have lost so much in so short a time? How could this have happened?

They were silent for a long while, and finally Cecil spoke. He was resolute, firm. In his voice, Rydia heard the conviction that reminded her why he was such a great leader. He would not accept this as a defeat. He would hold them together.

“We go to Baron. For Cid,” he said.

They looked at him then, and nodded, an iron resolve settling over their grief. They were beaten but not defeated. There were deaths to avenge.


	12. Chapter 12

 

The miles between Agart and Baron blurred together in a wash of true blues and greens—colors Rydia hadn’t seen for a decade. She sat on the deck for a long time, staring into the blurred kaleidoscope of the earth between the clouds.

Two good men had fallen. The crystals were no closer to being retrieved, and no matter how many times she tried to assure herself that Cecil would keep them all together, the circle of grief washed over her. The odds—the overwhelming odds.

None of them had spoken at all for miles, each absorbed by their own emotions, but Rydia began to catch snippets of conversation near the captain’s wheel. Rosa was speaking to Cecil in rapid, almost frantic tones, and eager to grasp onto something other than her uncertain thoughts, Rydia finally pried herself away from the ship’s railing and walked closer.

“-- Cid was saying? Get into the Tower from above?” Rosa had just asked.

“He said there used to be a path through the mountains of Eblan, but the entrance to the caverns is on the edge of the sea past a maze of shoals.”

“We’d need the hovercraft, is what you mean,” Rosa replied.

“I’m certain the hovercraft is exactly what Cid was thinking when he told us to find his engineers,” Cecil answered.

“But Eblan? That’s several more days of traveling _with_ an airship. We don’t even know if a path exists!”

“The crater to the Underworld is blocked, and Golbez remains there. Our only path to both him and the Dwarves is through that Tower,” he explained, his tone even, trying to calm her down.

                “It could be a waste of time!” Rosa protested.

                “We don’t have any other options, Rosa!” Cecil argued, his voice rising for the first time. “We have to attempt to salvage our original mission in the tower, or return to the Underworld to protect the final crystal.”

                “The crystals or nothing, is that it?” she asked.

                “We’ll follow this course no matter where it leads. In the meantime, the extra travel will provide us an opportunity to recover from our losses and fatigue.”

                Rosa exhaled sharply, turning away. “I can’t believe the tower cost us Yang and Cid and we’re planning to return there. We’re so thin on allies already.”

                “The perils of war,” Cecil said heavily, turning the ship’s wheel as a shift in the air currents buffeted them.

The two of them remained silent for a protracted moment, the whirring of the propellers filling the pause. Rydia was beginning to feel her doubts rise in her chest, but a new voice stalled them.

“What about Astrid?” Kain asked from where he stood at the railing.

                They all turned to face him, Cecil and Rosa realizing for the first time that their conversation had not been private.

                “Kain, you can’t seriously be suggesting that we drag Astrid into this mess,” Rosa objected, her brow creased.

                He gave her a measured look from the shadows of his helmet. “To think she’s not already involved would be naïve. She could be helpful to our cause,” he stated matter-of-factly.

                His pronouncement made Rydia shudder. The idea of putting anyone else in harm’s way after so many had already been wounded or killed was ice in her veins.

“At any rate, we’re almost there,” Kain pointed out, directing their attention to the horizon.

                True to his word, the great kingdom of Baron appeared out of the blue expanse of the ocean, the spires and turrets of the city glistening beneath the clouds. As they drew closer, Cecil angling their descent, Rydia noticed the castle standing tall and magnificent against the mountains in the distance. The sun caught on pools of water that glittered brilliantly in courtyards and gardens, and the sight of it left her breathless.

                She’d heard stories of Baron and always imagined it to be a dark and unforgiving place, but from the sky she saw its beauty.

                Cecil flew them round to the northern part of the city to dry docks. The airship lowered down to the ground, gears and mechanicals grinding as feet emerged from the airship’s sides to support it.

                Once the stone docks were level with the ship, Kain set about moving a large wooden plank to cross the gap between the ship and the dock.

                The ship alighted on the ground with a jolt—joints and timbers creaking. Cecil pulled several levers, and the ship’s sounds ceased altogether.

                “It’s been a while since we were last here,” he told them as the propellers turned silently to a slow stop. “Stay close until we’re sure Golbez’s forces haven’t returned while we were out,” Cecil said, leading the way off the ship and onto the docks where a path had been cut that led to the castle.

                The path ended at a postern door, and Cecil called to the watch tower above it. When no one answered, he budged it open.

                “That’s not a good sign,” Kain muttered.

                “There must not be enough men to post watch,” Cecil observed, looking across the moat and into the courtyard beyond.

                He waited a minute and then climbed a ladder into the watch tower while they waited. The sound of chains and metal scraping against metal was heard as a drawbridge extended across the moat. When it had fully spanned the breach, Cecil descended the ladder and beckoned everyone forward.

                They crossed the first courtyard without incident, no souls to be found. Rydia swept her gaze along the walls and guard towers. It seemed as though the entire castle was deserted.

                Cecil led them to a heavy wooden door with iron bracing that opened to a stairway. He was taking them into the depths of the keep.

                “We need to find Cid’s engineers,” Cecil explained as they climbed the stairs to an external landing only to descend another staircase leading back into the belly of the castle. “He left them instructions when he was here last. Whatever plan Cid had for the airship will no doubt determine our next course.”

                “If we can find his engineers,” Rosa said apprehensively, looking into the long shadows cast by the suits of armor against the walls.

                They had navigated a few hallways and were approaching the main foyer when Kain suddenly reached out his arm and caught Cecil’s shoulder. “Someone’s coming,” he warned.

                They all stopped and watched an intersection of corridors, waiting for the footsteps to draw nearer.

                Rydia caught Rosa’s gaze, their expressions both set. After traveling so long through the Tower of Babil, Rydia half expected something malicious to jump around the corner in front of them. By the look in Rosa’s eyes, she suspected Rosa felt the same.

                The footsteps were finally revealed to belong to a guard, and Rydia released a long-held breath. The guard almost passed them by, but he glanced down the corridor, and upon seeing them—a company of strangers in strange garb—he jerked to a stop. His sword and Cecil’s were drawn within seconds, neither knowing what to expect.

                “Captain Harvey?” the guard asked after a tense moment, hesitantly lowering his sword.

                “Sergeant Quinn,” Cecil answered, sheathing his own sword.

                The guard’s eyes were wide. “And Captain Highwind?”

                “Quinn,” Kain’s voice boomed in the hallway. “Where is everyone?”

                The guard named Quinn licked his lips. “There weren’t many of us left after the usurper’s men ran for the hills. We’re but a limited contingent.”

“Sergeant, who is in command of the castle?” Cecil asked.

“I am, sir,” he answered.

“Any news of Golbez?”

“No, sir.”

“What about Cid’s crew?” Kain interjected. “Are they still loitering about?”

“Last I saw of them, they were working near the east tower. Cid left them some items to tinker with, and they should still be there.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

                Quinn seemed reluctant to step out of their path. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to ask. How am I to know you aren’t one of Golbez’s deceptions?”

                “We would not be traveling with a child of Mist, if we were Golbez’s puppets,” Rosa explained, stepping forward.

                “Lady Farrell,” Quinn said hurriedly, bowing his head. “Forgive me, I did not see you there.”

                “It is understandable to be on your guard,” Rosa assured him. “We mean no harm, we simply need to meet with Cid’s engineers before setting out again.”

                “Of course. Please, do what you must. We will not get in your way. It’s good to see all of you again, but If you’ll excuse me, I have rounds to perform.”

                “Sergeant, one last thing,” Cecil called out, halting the guard before he could step out of doors.

                “Yes, captain?”

                “Post a guard on the postern.”

                “Aye, Captain.”

                “I’m not your captain any longer, Quinn.”

                The guard’s expression was quizzical. “You were never anything less to us, sir,” he said and departed.

 

                They watched the sergeant leave them, a bemused expression on Cecil’s face before he turned briefly to Kain.

                “We can speak to the engineers ourselves. There’s no reason to drag Rosa and Rydia with us.”

He turned to face the two of them. “Rosa, you and Rydia can take it easy for a while. We’ll meet with the engineers and see you at the west tower in the evening.”

                Rosa nodded and tugged Rydia’s sleeve. “Come on. We’re not needed for this.”

                “Where are we going?” Rydia wondered.

                “On a walk. I don’t know about you, but I need to clear my head.”

                Rydia watched as Cecil and Kain began to walk away, heading the opposite direction. Truly, she was a bit stymied. All she wanted was a quiet corner and some time to herself, but she humored Rosa by following her out of the large castle entryway and down the causeway to the gates of the keep itself.

                Here at last there were guards at the walls and in the towers above the gate.

                When the guards noticed the approach of the two women, they raised the portcullis.

                Rydia took in her surroundings with awe and a bit of trepidation.  She hadn’t seen the harsh edge of the castle from the air, but now she saw signs of the war. Piles of broken spears lay just beyond the castle gate, and char covered the walls from errant spells.

                “It wasn’t always this way,” Rosa informed her gently.

                Rydia looked at her.

                “This was once a city of knowledge and beauty. Contests of strength were held to test a man’s courage, not his ability to wage war. But then the usurper came to power. His reign introduced the use of the Dark Sword as a tool of war, and one by one the captains began to fall to madness and bloodlust. Even Cecil suffered under the weight of that evil.”

                “But he overcame it,” Rydia noted. “There used to be pain in his eyes, but he’s conquered it. Maybe the rest of this kingdom can overcome it.”

                Rosa’s smile was tight and uncertain. “We can only hope,” she murmured, leading Rydia over the moat and into the city.

 

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

Cecil traversed the hallways of Baron’s castle like the master he was. Quinn hadn’t been lying when he said the guard was reduced to a limited contingent. He and Kain met few guards on their walk to the east courtyard. Servants were even scarcer with no one for them to serve. They exited the keep’s main hallways and crossed the causeway leading to the courtyard.

Finding Cid’s engineers was easy enough. Wherever there were hammers clanging and unusual explosions, they were there.

Sparks were flying from metal striking metal, and neither of the engineers heard Cecil or Kain approach. Cecil stood to the side, waiting for a pause before making his presence known.

                “More airship components?” Cecil asked in a loud voice when an opportunity presented itself.

                Mid, the senior engineer, whirled around, lifting up his goggles, his hammer raised. The skin around his eyes was stained black with soot and metal shavings were imbedded in his beard.

                “Cecil!” Mid exclaimed, hastily setting down his hammer, removing a thick leather glove from his meaty hand, and extending it to Cecil.

                Cecil shook hands with the engineer, unsurprised by the man’s iron grip. “Mid, good to see you.”

                “Well met! I assume you’re here about the airship parts?”

                Cecil and Kain exchanged a quick look. “Cid’s filled you in already, I assume?”

                “Of course!” the stocky man replied. “He sent you, didn’t he? Is he still in the Underground tinkering with new metals? Typical. He gets to have all the fun and we’re stuck here doing the grunt work. Rest assured, though, you can leave it to us! We’ll have you on your way before you can blink!”

The older man wasted no time in assembling his tool belt with gear and beckoning the other engineer to follow. Cecil didn’t have time to get another word in edge-wise before the two engineers had trundled up the courtyard stairs headed in the direction of the dry docks.  

“That was oddly efficient,” Kain mumbled, staring after the engineers a bit absently. He paused, sparing Cecil a glance. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to check on the barracks. I’d like to see if any of the dragoons are still here.”

Cecil nodded. “Might be best to figure out who’s left in Baron. We may need them in the days ahead.”

Kain made to leave, but hesitated, turning back around. “It’s been months since we’ve stopped moving for more than a few minutes put together. Get some rest, Cecil. Besides, we’re no use to the engineers and the women won’t return until evening.”

Cecil nodded slowly, staring silently at the walls of the keep. It was true that a rest was most welcome, but now that it came to it, he feared being alone with his thoughts.

“I’ll—yes, I probably should rest,” he admitted grudgingly. “Until later, then,” he managed.

Kain gave him a measured look, but struck off in the opposite direction without another word.

Cecil followed behind more slowly. He took his time walking through the halls. For the first time in months he felt he had permission to breathe, and being surrounded by the familiar haunts of his childhood home set him at ease.

                The pain of his companions’ passing washed over him, revealing grief in stages. For now, he was relieved he at least had the time to mourn their loss without an audience.

When the modifications to the airship were made, he would have to drive all emotion away—to be the unflagging leader that the rest could rely upon. For now he let tears fall down his cheeks shamelessly, gripping a wall at its corner when the grief stole his breath from deep down.

He mastered his emotions slowly, meandering from one corridor to the next with no discernable plan.

Finally, he found himself climbing the stairs to stand atop the barracks. From here he could see the entirety of Baron’s northern expanse.

                He closed his eyes and sighed. After several minutes he heard footsteps.

“You didn’t get very far,” Kain remarked in the baritone Cecil was used to. “Would you mind some company?” Cecil opened his eyes and saw his friend standing in his civilian attire—no armor at all. Seeing Kain this way humanized him, and set right the view of him that had been stained by Golbez’s influence.

                “By all means,” Cecil said.

                Kain walked closer, and folding his arms, looked out at the same scene Cecil was looking at.

                “Quinn was right. Barely enough men left here to guard a castle, let alone fight a war. The dragoons are nowhere to be found.”

                “I feared that might be the case. Who knows how many truly loyal men the usurper culled before we’d realized it.”

                “They can’t all be dead. The dragoons are resourceful, resilient. I’ll bet they’re somewhere nearby,” Kain said adamantly.

                “Wherever they are, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still in this alone.”

                Kain studied him seriously. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

                Cecil swallowed hard. “I’m not giving up. I won’t—can’t. There’s too much at stake. But sometimes I wonder…if we even have a chance.”

                Kain let out a long steady sigh. “You’ve chased Golbez all across the world, invaded his stronghold, killed three of his generals, his lead strategist, and you think we don’t have a chance? He’s on the run, and he knows his time is getting shorter.”

                Cecil looked at the other man askance. “Where is this optimism suddenly coming from?”

                Kain shook his head, long blonde hair falling into his face. “It won’t do to have you be the defeatist. Someone has to balance the wrongness of it—may as well be me.”

                Cecil smiled ruefully. “I suppose.”

                The two of them fell into companionable silence, staring out over the walls.

                “Remarkable,” Kain finally said quietly. “It’s been months but it feels as though it’s been years.”

                “It does, doesn’t it,” Cecil remarked, and then added, remembering, “For one of us, it actually has been.”

                Kain clenched his jaw and let out another slow sigh. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to broach that matter.”

“And?”

“I have no idea how to make amends with her,” Kain revealed.

                “I don’t either,” Cecil admitted.

                “For yourself or for me?”

                Cecil looked at him sideways. “I’m not the one who disappeared after the destruction.”

                Kain’s grip on the stone crenellations tightened. “I deserve that.”           




                “All I know is that Rydia’s not the sort of person who will hold a grudge forever.”

                Kain glanced at him. “Are you talking about the seven-year-old or the young woman? Ten years is a long time, how can you be sure her attitudes haven’t changed?”

                “Rydia…has changed in some ways, it’s true, but in others she’s the same person I first met.”

                “I think she’d rather spend her quiet moments communicating with her summoned beasts than with me.”

                “You should try.”

                “It’s easier for you—you didn’t haunt her nightmares as I must have.”

                Cecil faced his friend full on. “We’re all bound together now. We have no choice but to hold on for dear life. I can’t have there be doubt and distrust between the two of you.”

                “I will…attempt to speak with her,” Kain conceded.

                “Soon,” Cecil prompted.

                “Yes, soon. If I can find the words.”

                The stared at each other for a long moment, gauging the sincerity of the other. Then, like the tension released from a bowstring, the unspoken challenge passed. They each returned their attention to the world beyond the walls.

                Kain snorted. “Look at us—two captains without a kingdom to serve.”

                “If his majesty were here—he would know what to do,” Cecil agreed.

                Kain opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then tried again. “You would be the best man to take his place,” he told Cecil honestly, facing him again.

                “ _Me_?” Cecil asked.

                “You knew him the best, after all. And the men trust you.”

                “I couldn’t…to rule over Baron...” Cecil repeated, weighing the idea in his mind. “What would you do?”

                Kain was quiet a moment. “My future isn’t written in stone.

                Cecil gauged his friend. “You sound as though you don’t expect to have a future.”

                “As you said, there are very few of us and a great many of the enemy. It’s a miracle we’ve survived even this long.”

                “Very few of us,” Cecil acknowledged. “We’ve lost some good men.”

                “Maybe we’ll find allies in Eblan,” Kain said, switching the subject.

                “If there are any people to be found, that is. You heard what Rubicante said in the tower—the kingdom was destroyed.”

                Kain gave him a skeptical look. “Do you really think Eblan would fall completely? They’ve been through war before—they’ve survived.”

                “I’d forgotten about the depth of your regard for the ninja of Eblan.”

                Kain nodded. “They’re a tight-lipped society, but warriors all the same. If any of them survived, they could be immensely helpful to us.”

                “Hopefully they escaped the bombardment in time.”

                “We won’t know until we’re able to see for ourselves,” Kain answered. “On the subject of leaving, it’s been a few hours and I haven’t heard much hammering coming from the docks. I’ll go check on them, if you don’t mind,” he said, turning to leave.

                Cecil couldn’t help but think of Cid at mention of the engineers. “I wonder if there will ever be time to honor Cid properly,” he called over his shoulder.

                He heard Kain’s footfalls slow and finally stop. There was a moment before the other man answered. “When this is all over…we will remember him—and all the rest.”

                Cecil turned to see his friend’s back as Kain descended the staircase from the roof, and he wondered if _they_ would be coming back.

                “So few against so many,” he repeated to himself and half smiled. “Just a damn bunch of fools, I guess.”


	13. Chapter 13

 

“This is the city?” Rydia asked, awed. They had left the stark world of the castle for the verdant one of the city surrounding it. Trees stood between buildings like sentinels, branches draping into the streets with a healthy bearding of moss. Homes and shops rose upwards with towers and turrets crowding the sky. Rydia spied ceramic tiles on the roofs that shone a warm mahogany in the sunlight. The city felt ancient and well-worn, very close.

                Rydia barely had time to absorb her surroundings, as Rosa’s quick pace made her have to hop to catch up. Something was on the other woman’s mind.

                “Rosa?” she huffed, almost running. “Where are we going?”

                Rosa stopped dead in her tracks, chewing her lip. She seemed caught between which direction to take, and Rydia found that odd for one who had grown up in the city.

                “The earful I’m going to get…” Rydia overheard Rosa murmur to herself.

                They paused for only a moment before Rosa struck off again. Rydia was exhausted by trying to draw the other woman out and contented herself with waiting to see the cause of the white mage’s worries. They traveled swiftly along the cobbled roads, but Rydia could feel eyes following their progress. She glanced from side to side and saw window shutters snap shut as they passed.

                She looked at Rosa inquiringly.

“They’re afraid,” Rosa explained without missing a beat. “When the fiend Cagnazzo stole the throne, martial law became the form of justice in this city. I can’t imagine what it’s been like since Golbez’s fiends were removed from the castle, but the people here are worried they might fall prey to Golbez again.”

                “But why are they afraid of us? Rydia asked. “We don’t look like fiends.”

                “Golbez’s forces were disguised by magic. No one knew…until too late. I don’t think anyone expected to see me here alive. I’ve been gone for so long.”

                They had just passed what looked to be the city’s marketplace, with a host of glances and whispers following them, when they were stopped by the only person brave enough to accost them.

“Rosa?” a young red-headed woman exclaimed from across the square. “Rosa!”

                She dashed over to them—a girl of medium height with red hair that had been chopped straight at the shoulders. There was a light smattering of freckles below intense dark eyes.

                “Astrid!” Rosa cried in delight.

                The two women fussed over one another for a few minutes while Rydia stood awkwardly to the side. She was quite taken aback by the profuse use of high pitched exclamations—she had never seen this side of Rosa. Rydia glanced about and saw eyebrows raised on all the onlookers in the square.

                “Have you been to see your mother?” the other woman asked, her voice finally lowering to normal pitches. “She was so worried when you left, and when Cecil last returned without you--we were all worried you’d been caught up in something terrible.”

                “It was…not the best of times,” Rosa admitted.

                “Where were you? Did Cecil come for you? No one really explained what happened, and the rumors coming out of the castle were so many that no one knew the truth,” Astrid asked, deeply interested.

                “He did—but not before Golbez had used me as a bargaining chip for one of the crystals,” Rosa said vehemently. “We had all meant to escape this place, and in the end, we were all drawn into the net.”

                Astrid folded her arms across her chest. “Bargaining chip,” she repeated. “Golbez had you? That spiky prick sure has nerve. Good thing you can always count on Cecil to rescue you, though,” she added with a knowing smile.

                 “I don’t rely on Cecil for everything,” Rosa protested, “and I had no way of knowing if I would ever see any of you again.”

                “At least you can count on him for the big things,” Astrid replied, unfazed. Then she shifted her gaze and caught sight of Rydia. She cast a curious look at Rosa, then back.

                “Is your hair naturally that color?” Astrid asked.

                “Astrid!” Rosa hissed, giving her a cautionary look.

                Rydia blushed with embarrassment. “It’s not entirely uncommon where I’m from,” she explained a bit timidly.

                “Where are you from, then, to have hair as green as grass?”

                “The village Mist.”

                “Mist!” Astrid exclaimed with eyebrows raised. “I thought—“

                Rydia felt her cheeks redden further. “I’m the last of that village.”

Astrid’s expression instantly changed, and her lips set in a grim line. She looked at Rosa with fury in her eyes.

                “Those sons of bitches!” she shouted, shaking her fists. Other people in the square turned to look at the commotion, but most didn’t seem at all shocked at its source. “All those people! To use MY friends to do it, too!”

Rydia felt a little flattered that someone else would rage on her behalf, but she was more taken aback than anything.

                “Astrid,” Rosa warned in a tone that brooked no argument.

                The other woman released her breath in a huff, as if exhaling all the words she’d meant to say. Though she was biting back her words, the fury still blazed in her eyes. Rydia had a curious notion that the other woman reminded her of someone…

                “I’m sorry for failing at introductions,” Rosa hastily added, “Rydia, this is Cid’s daughter, Astrid. Astrid, this is Rydia,” she explained, clearing up the misunderstanding.

                Astrid thrust out her hand, which Rydia hastily shook before nervously retracting her hand and absently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Puzzle pieces were beginning to fit together in her mind.

                “You traveled with Cecil?” Astrid asked. “Even after…”

                “He saved my life,” Rydia answered, not sure what else to say.

Astrid nodded, unsurprised. “Were you one of the people who helped him rescue Rosa?”

                “We were…separated,” Rydia explained.

                “Astrid, it’s a bit complicated,” Rosa interjected.

                Astrid gave Rosa a measured look.

“Either way, thank you for whatever part you played. I’ve worried a great deal about my friends here,” she told Rydia honestly, inclining her head in Rosa’s direction. “Speaking of being separated,” she added, giving Rosa her full attention again. “Where did that good for nothing father of mine go? Wasn’t he with you when you came here for repairs?”

                Rydia felt her stomach fall into her boots at the mention of the engineer, and she sensed Rosa’s posture go rigid.

                “We last saw him in the Underworld,” Rosa began, her words tight.

                Rydia admired Rosa’s tact. It wasn’t entirely untrue.

                Astrid groaned. “Just like him to stay behind when there’s work to be done! You tell him to stop tinkering with mythril and get back here already! There are a good number of ships that could use his attention—maybe then we could go after Golbez ourselves!”

                “There are other ships?” Rosa asked. “Why didn’t Golbez take them?”

                “Defective. But only on purpose. When my father began to sense what was going on in the court, he sabotaged them. Spent most of his time trying to make it look like it wasn’t his fault, but ever since then, I’ve been fixing them, readying them for combat.”

                “That’s brilliant!” Rosa exclaimed. “Astrid, you truly are your father’s daughter!”

                The red-head smiled brightly. “I do my best.”

                There was an awkward pause that followed, and Astrid, misreading it, suddenly lit up with concern. “Skies above, you haven’t been to see your mother at all, have you!”

                Rosa made a face, frowning.

                “No wonder you’re so anxious. Go! It’s been months since she’s seen you. Here I am, wasting all your time…find me later if you can, Rosa!” Astrid said with a wave as she started marching away. “It was good to meet you, Rydia!” she called over her shoulder, and then was gone.

 

 

In the grand scheme of things, not telling Astrid the truth about her father was probably a mercy.

                She saw how tense Rosa was, and knew what it must have cost her to hold back the truth, but now she knew the other cause for the woman’s concern.

                “Rosa?” she asked.

                “Rydia, there’s something I have to do. You don’t have to come with me—but if you would like to walk around, you’re perfectly welcome to. You’ll be safe here.”

                Rydia weighed her options.

                “Are you sure you don’t want someone else with you when you speak to your mother?” Rydia asked.

                Rosa’s eyes took on a faraway quality. “No, this is something I have to do by myself.”

                “I’ll take a look around, then,” Rydia answered resignedly.

                “There are gardens near the eastern wall, and if you get lost, just look for the castle,” Rosa told her.

                “Meet back at dusk, right?”

                “At dusk,” Rosa confirmed, and set off across the square, leaving Rydia behind.                




                Now that she thought of it, she hadn’t been on her own, able to walk around freely, since the Feymarch. Every other occasion, she’d been in the company of someone else or otherwise in danger of being torn to pieces.

                She considered the market for an instant, but set the idea aside in favor of peace and quiet.

                She left the square and meandered toward a lane that followed a stream that sliced through the city. It was lower here than on the main roads, a gradual stone embankment. The air was cooler and smelled of summer and growing things. There was a sweetness to it like fresh clipped clover and Rydia closed her eyes to take in the scent, finding it to be the first refreshing thing she’d smelled in months.

                After weeks tarrying in sulfur, stale tower air, and smoke; to be among real grass and trees…it was ecstasy.

                She followed the stream’s path to a bridge that led through a wall. Beyond it stood blooming verbena and lilies.

                Rydia was so overcome, she nearly lost herself in the moment.

                To be in the real world again. To be among humans again!

                But she still ached for the companionship of the Eidolons. She had her human friends here, yes, but their relationships had become strained, overshadowed by the threats they faced. And being in this city—this was their shared history, their stage, not hers.

                She searched the garden for signs of others, and when she was satisfied she was alone, she began an incantation.

                She left the world of summer behind, focusing on the summoning. The air around her chilled and frost dusted the tips of the grass that surrounded her.

                “At last you’ve called,” Shiva murmured, and Rydia opened her eyes, the summoning complete. Shiva wore robes of shimmering blue and silver that hung loose about her shoulders. She looked perfectly at ease, composed. She was just as Rydia remembered from the Feymarch only here she appeared in guise and not her natural self.

                “We’ve left the underground,” Rydia informed her. “But we’ve—we’ve lost some along the way,” she began, but the tears had finally broken through her dams, trickling down her cheeks.

                “The crystals,” Shiva asked, her tone measured and deceptively mild. “Have they been retrieved?”

                Rydia shook her head and Shiva’s eyes narrowed as she knelt beside her.

                “This is all hard news,” she said. “Harder still to live it and not just tell it. I am sorry for the losses your people have suffered. It is a price of war.”

                “We were so close,” Rydia hiccupped through tears. “So close, but then the cannons—the dwarves.”

                “Black told us of an explosion he sensed on his way down the tower. I had hoped to hear your voice again. In fact, we all worried we might not, it had been so long.”

                “We fled the tower,” Rydia explained. “We fled, but as we were leaving Golbez—”

                Here Shiva drew away, concern knitting her frosted brow.

                “Did he find what he was looking for?” she asked.

                “No, I don’t think so.”

                The Eidolon relaxed. “I suppose we would have known by now if he had.”

                “But he headed us off—and if Cid, the airship engineer, hadn’t saved us…”

                “But  you’re above ground now, back in the realm of humans,” Shiva interrupted her. “What is your plan now?”

                “We’ve decided to try the tower again—from above ground.”

                “Surely you don’t mean to fly, it will be guarded by air and they will see you coming.”

                “There are caves in a kingdom called Eblan that might join with the tower, and Cecil has decided we take the chance even if the caves are blocked.”

                “Caves, eh? But how many options do you have?” the Eidolon mused. “You’ve already tried from the bottom…”

                “But Yang and Cid…” Rydia trailed off.

                “I knew it!” a voice behind her shouted.

                Shiva was on her feet at once, the rod she held billowing with icy steam, ready to attack this unknown person.

                “Who are you!” Shiva demanded.

                Rydia turned and realized who it was immediately. How could she not? The red hair—the flashing eyes.

                She stood between Astrid and Shiva, her arms outstretched.

                “So you ARE a summoner,” Astrid noted with a hint of awe.

                “Astrid—what?” Rydia asked, surprised at the intrusion.

                “You mentioned my father among the fallen. You lied to me earlier. Why?” the young woman demanded.

                “Why are you asking me this and not Rosa? I only met your father once,” Rydia countered.

                “Because your face betrayed the lie. What do you know?” Astrid pressed.

                “He…” Rydia’s voice faltered, but she found she could not hide the truth from Astrid. Lying had never been one of her strengths. “He went overboard. He closed the path to the underworld with a bomb and we haven’t seen him since.”

                Astrid studied her intently, unmoving. “But you didn’t see him hit the ground,” Astrid probed.

                Rydia frowned, thinking. “No. I didn’t.”

                Astrid relaxed. Not much, but perceivably. “Stodgy old coot, that.”

                Rydia inclined her head, not comprehending. This was not the reaction she’d been expecting.

                “He’s not dead,” Astrid informed her after she saw the look of confusion on Rydia’s face.

                “How do you—“

                “It takes more than an explosion and a fall to kill my father. Man’s made of adamant.”

                Rydia wasn’t convinced.

                “I thought something was suspicious when he didn’t return with you. He said that he’d come up with a plan in case the first mission failed, but when he wasn’t with you…”

                “Astrid, he fell a long way…”

                “Rydia, we practically live in the sky. He wouldn’t have jumped without a back-up plan.”

                Rydia took a deep breath, hope surging in her chest. She wrestled with it, not wanting to get ahead of herself.

                “And now I know why Rosa was so upset,” Astrid mused. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Me and dad’s crew will have your ship ready to go by tomorrow.”

                “Astrid…I’m sorry,” Rydia offered.

                “Don’t be,” the woman responded offhandedly. “I’ve gotten the truth out of you, that was all I really wanted.”

                Astrid then looked at Shiva whose stance hadn’t relaxed much despite Rydia’s intervention. “So…are you going to call off the attack?”

                Rydia glanced at Shiva and nodded. Shiva lowered her weapon.

                “Cold as death over here,” Astrid complained, rubbing her arms. “Is that your magic’s doing?”

                Shiva frowned. “I command the power of ice. If you can’t handle the cold, I suggest you leave.”

                Astrid held both of her hands up in surrender. “It’s not a problem! It’s just odd to leave summer behind and enter an ice box all of a sudden, is all.”

                She looked at Rydia, and then at Shiva. “Oh, sorry, I interrupted something, didn’t I?”

                Rydia gave her a tight smile but didn’t have the heart to shoo her away.

                “We have important things to discuss, yes,” Shiva answered. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to get back to them.”

                “Right! Of course!” Astrid announced a bit awkwardly, backing away. “It was nice meeting you…err…queen of the ice.”

                Rydia and Shiva watched her leave. When Rydia looked back at Shiva, her arms were folded across her chest, and her eyes were narrowed. “Humans…” she muttered.

                The Eidolon turned her attention back to Rydia. “So tell me, child. Your human friends, are they treating you well?”

                Rydia gazed out at the garden. All the recent arguments she’d had with her friends bubbling to the surface of her thoughts.

                “Yes,” she answered half-heartedly.

                “They are having a hard time accepting you,” Shiva discerned.

                “I had thought…I had thought my return would have more of an effect on them. That I would be able to come back as an adult and be treated as one. They still treat me like a child.”

                Shiva smiled knowingly. “You still _are_ a child, in many respects,” she answered.

                Rydia frowned. “You’re not helping,” she lamented.

                “I believe you had a similar conversation with Black,” Shiva added.

                Rydia wanted to scream. Was nothing private anymore?

                “Rydia, humans have an illogical love of time. When something doesn’t fit their reality, they regard it as…something of a curiosity. I’m sure your friends still love and appreciate all that you do for them.”

                “I wish they’d tell me,” Rydia muttered.

                Shiva smiled. “And remember that you have us, even when it seems that you are alone.”

                “Thank you,” Rydia told her honestly. After so many deaths, it was good to know that she still had someone.

                “Good luck in the days ahead, Rydia. Don’t hesitate to summon any of us when you are in need.”

                Rydia nodded, closing her eyes. She felt Shiva’s hand on her chin and opened her eyes again. “Make us proud,” Shiva told her.

                Rydia smiled, tears still staining her cheeks, and spoke the words that ended the summoning. Shiva faded to a vapor and was gone.

                Rydia sat where she was in the garden for a few minutes longer. She was not alone. She reminded herself of it again and again. Not alone.

                She looked up at the sky and saw that it had turned to a golden hue. It was not yet evening, but she was eager to rejoin the others. The city held no real interest for her, and she was eager to collect her bearings.

                She stood and left the garden behind, following the path back to the market. Once there, she realized she was completely lost. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the turns Rosa had made when they were entering the city and now she couldn’t recall which street to follow.

                Look for the castle, she recalled Rosa saying…she peered above the tall buildings and saw spires rising in the distance. It was off to her right and some way away, but at least she had a general course.

                She took off westward, taking several wrong streets, getting turned around, and spent so much time trying to navigate, that by the time she finally reached the castle gates again, it truly was dusk.

                She was exhausted and was delighted that no one questioned her as she crossed the draw bridge and into the castle proper.

                There were a number of thoughts crowding her head as she entered the foyer, but all of them fled when her path crossed with Kain’s.

                He missed a step and faltered to a stop once he saw her in turn. His eyes, un-obscured by the harshness of his helm, were vulnerable, startled.

                He wasn’t wearing his armor, she noticed, and seeing him wearing simple trousers and a loose shirt made him seem…smaller, less imposing. She didn’t realize she was staring at him to intently, brows pinched together as if she were angry, and she immediately softened her expression.

                She saw him relax his shoulders in response.

                “Any word on when we’ll be leaving?” she asked.

                Perhaps relieved that she had chosen a neutral topic, he took a step forward, resuming whatever task he’d originally set out to accomplish.

                “I’m checking on the engineers now,” he said.

                She nodded absently. She was already thinking two steps ahead.

                Would they find the caverns blocked? How were they going to survive another foray into the tower without Yang? What would she do without his presence to ground her?

                Kain had taken a few more steps, leaving Rydia to her musings, when he paused again. “Weren’t you with Rosa? He asked, searching the doorway behind her.

                Rydia looked behind her as well, half-expecting the devastatingly beautiful woman to make her entrance at any time.

                “She stayed behind in the city,” Rydia replied automatically.

                Kain just nodded. “I see,” he said, and Rydia detected a hint of disappointment in his voice.

                She wasn’t sure how to end the awkward conversation, but he solved the problem for her by walking away. She stared after him for a few minutes, curious.

                There were so many dynamics between her companions that it was hard for her to keep track of them all. Most confusing of all, was her relationship to Kain.

                Suddenly she remembered that she had meant to ask him a question—she had no idea where the west tower was!—but he had already ascended a staircase and left the foyer. She struggled between whether or not to go after him. She was tired of taking wrong turns, but some part of her pride refused to request help from _him_ of all people.

                Instead, she continued exploring. She took several more wrong turns in the process, descending staircases when she should have been ascending. There were hallways that led to balconies over court yards, but none of them led to the west tower. She returned to the foyer again and followed suits of armor and ornate marble pillars to a set of doors that she hadn’t yet explored.

                The doors opened to an unusual scene, and Rydia stopped in her tracks to stare.

                There before her stood two statues, practically identical save for a few details. They were children captured perfectly in stone, each hair and strand of fabric on their clothing perfectly portrayed. They were pushing at each wall, arms outstretched, feet braced. If Rydia didn’t know any better, she would have thought it an odd choice of decoration, but she was a user of magic.

                She felt the tang of strong magic in the chamber, and a startling thought came to her. These were the twins who had traveled with Cecil. These were the two she had seen briefly in her visions. She rested a hand on the shoulder of one of the twins, and a jolt shot through her palm. She shrieked and jumped back.

                _What?_ She thought furiously. She tried again, timidly reaching out with her fingertips. This time she didn’t flinch when the jolt met her skin. She focused. Yes, strong magic, she concluded. She could feel it pulsing. They had turned themselves to stone! But when the spell should have worn off, or by all accounts, been removed, they remained where they were unmoving.

                But they were still alive—that she could tell. There was still a spark of consciousness buried deep within. She wasn’t sure how she knew for certain, but a strong pull on her gut told her it was so.

                “They saved our lives,” Cecil’s voice said sadly behind her.

                She jumped again, but this time for a very different reason.

                “Are you alright?” he asked, looking at her with concern.

                “Fine,” she answered, catching her breath.

                Cecil stepped toward her, looking at the twins with remorse.

                He set a hand on the girl’s shoulder and closed his eyes as if remembering her in life. Rydia watched him intently, wanting to know if he felt what she had, but his expression revealed nothing.

                “They sacrificed themselves to save us, and now they’re trapped this way,” he explained.

                She let him grieve for a moment, not wanting to intrude on whatever thoughts he was entertaining, but she knew something he didn’t.

                “They’re not lost,” she told him softly.

                He turned to look at her, disbelief at war with hope on his face. “What?” he asked.

                “They’re not lost,” she said again. “There’s still life in them.”

                “How do you know?” he asked.

                “I can sense it through the stone. There’s the strength of the spell encasing them, but beneath they sleep.”

                “Even Tellah couldn’t bring them back, do you think you can?”

                Rydia looked at the twins sadly. “I can tell you that they’re still alive, but I don’t possess the magic to break their spell. It was magic cast by twins, and different from my own. Someone who knew their incantations might be able to break it, but I can’t.”

                “But they’re really alive?” he asked again.

                Rydia nodded, and Cecil reached out to grip her arm. The look he gave her was one of genuine relief. “I’m glad you’re with us, Rydia.”

                “I’m glad to be back,” she answered.

                “With you gone, and then the twins…”

                “I’m not going anywhere again,” she assured him.

                “Good.”

                They stayed in the chamber for a few minutes longer and then left the twin statues behind, returning to the foyer.

                “Were you lost?” Cecil asked her while they walked.

                “A little,” she replied, trying to hide her embarrassment.

                “Follow me,” he said, leading her through the hallways. This time, she made sure to actually remember which corridors he took.

                “We’ll leave tomorrow,” he informed her.

                “So soon?” she asked, dreading the return to the tower of Babil.

                “We have no time to waste,” he answered, leading her across another courtyard to a tall and wide tower that rose into the sky.

                “Tomorrow then,” she repeated, dolefully.

                She hadn’t realized that she’d stopped until Cecil had turned around and gripped both of her shoulders. She looked into his pewter eyes, feeling very tired.

                “We’ll get through this,” he assured her.

                “How do you know?” she asked.

                “How did you know the twins were still alive?”

                She shrugged. “I just… _knew_.”

                “It’s your turn to trust me,” he replied.

                She stared into his eyes a moment longer, seeing the resolve there. She _did_ trust him, always had.

                “Tomorrow,” she said again, mastering her doubts.

                She squared her shoulders and forced a brave smile, and Cecil nodded in return. He released her shoulders and kept leading her up the tower stairs.

                They might face death and uncertainty, but they also had each other, and Rydia had the Eidolons behind her as well. They couldn’t fail. They couldn’t.


	14. Chapter 14

Birds were chirping and pecking at the window panes, and the smell of warm biscuits was wafting across the room… _food?_

                Rydia sat up, unaware of where she was.

                Her hair was a mess of unruly frizz disguised as curls, but she didn’t care about how she looked just then. She held her nose up in the air and took in the delightful scent coming from the floor below.

                She was in Baron, she remembered, and she hadn’t had anything other than hardtack and dwarven mush in _weeks_ but this was… _fresh food?_

She peeled back her blankets and stood up from her makeshift cot. They had spent the night in Cecil’s old apartments, after being offered a chance to bathe and don fresh clothing. She felt refreshed and clean, but now her stomach demanded attention. She wandered toward the stairway, and with each step downward, the smells became more delightful.

                She entered the large room of the floor below and saw Rosa sitting at a table with Astrid and Cecil. They were in the middle of what looked to be an intense conversation, and Rydia let them have their privacy. Instead, she approached another table that had the food sitting atop it. Water for tea was still steaming in its pot, and she closed her eyes, soaking the vapor into her skin.

                “Don’t just smell it,” Rosa called to her from across the room.

                Rydia looked up at her friend and saw that Astrid and Cecil had stood while continuing their conversation, but Rosa was waving her on with a smile on her face.

                She took the hint, taking a biscuit from the tray and biting into it, savoring every ounce of it on her tongue. There was honey in the bread and it was sweet to the taste.

                “I’m counting on you to spread the word,” she overheard Cecil telling Astrid.

                “Of course,” Astrid replied. “I wish you safe travels in the north, and once you reach Eblan, well…be on your guard.”

                She nodded to both Cecil and Rosa, and winked at Rydia before turning on her heel and exiting the room.

                Rosa had skirted the table and walked closer to Rydia. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.

                Rydia nodded between mouthfuls.

                “Good.”

                “How was your…conversation with your mother?” Rydia dared to ask. Rosa had returned very late in the evening, and when she had, she’d spent the entirety of her time with Cecil. Rydia had already been asleep by the time the other woman must have settled in for the night.

                Rosa gave her an odd little look. “Perhaps another time,” she answered with a tight smile.

                Cecil looked over at the both of them, alarmed.

                “It’s nothing to worry about,” Rosa assured him, but Rydia sensed the white mage was holding back again.

                “I can only imagine what that formidable woman had to say,” Cecil answered wryly.

                “All the same, she’s my mother,” Rosa replied, giving Cecil a plaintive look.

                Cecil sighed.  “The airship is ready to fly,” he said instead, addressing Rydia.  “The engineers have equipped it so that we can carry the hovercraft beneath the hull.”

                Rydia, who had no real knowledge of airships or how they worked, merely nodded.

                “And I’ve spoken to the cook, and she’s prepared food for us to take along,” Rosa added.

                “When are we leaving?” Rydia asked, curious.

                “In a few hours,” Rosa answered. “Once we’ve re-supplied, we’ll set off.”

                “What about Astrid? Is she coming with us?”

                “She has another mission to take care of,” Cecil responded.

                “Mission?”

                “There are other airships here waiting to be repaired. If Astrid can get them working again, we may be able to mount a defense against the Red Wings.”

                “A counterattack?” Rydia asked.

                “Of a sort,” Cecil replied.

                “How about you go upstairs and get ready,” Rosa prodded her.

                “What?” Rydia asked.

                Rosa reached out and lightly tugged on one of Rydia’s unruly locks.

                Rydia rolled her eyes. She imagined her hair probably looked like a bed of seaweed and groaned.

                She trudged back up the stairs and returned to her cot. Sitting on the end of it, she looked around, trying to find her pack. She was wearing a simple night shift, but she found her old outfit and robes lying folded under her cot. She held them up for inspection. Quite a bit worse for wear, she reflected.  The beautiful robes she’d been given in the Feymarch were nothing but tatters.

                There was another set folded beneath the cot as well. These were mostly gray garments trimmed with dark blue and made of sturdy stuff. It was coarse but serviceable and Rydia slipped it over her head. She then slipped her old armaments over the top and cinched her belt tight. Her second layer had also been a gift from the Feymarch and had fared slightly better. The cloth was woven together with magic, and nearly as tough as leather, though it only covered her torso and part of her legs.

                She made sure to pack away her green robes, and then pulled her knee-high boots onto her legs.  Finally she stood and carried her pack toward the stairs. She nearly took a step down, when she caught sight of herself in a mirror on the wall.

                She stared at herself for a long drawn out moment and then almost burst into laughter. Her hair was an entity all of its own!

                She set her pack down on the first stair step and approached the mirror. She looked at herself more speculatively, poking her skin, tugging her hair. She looked like some wild thing, not a person. She spied a coarse bristled brush sitting on a table near the mirror and picked it up. There were long golden hairs trailing from its sides, and she could only imagine that Rosa had already used it earlier in the morning. She ran the brush through her hair, tugging rather violently at the frizz and snarls. It took several minutes, but by the time she was finished, her curls looked more like curls and her hair overall behaved like hair again.

                She set the brush down and returned to the stairs, bringing her pack to the floor below.

                Cecil and Rosa were both drinking tea from mugs when she entered the room and Rosa nodded approvingly.

                “Good, the robes fit you,” she said. “I found some spares in the mage dormitories.”

                “Thank you,” Rydia said, picking at the fabric. “There wasn’t much left of my other clothes.”

                “There wasn’t much left on any of us,” Rosa agreed, smiling. She stood and Rydia saw that she was wearing new robes as well. Hers were still white, but she now wore armor over them as well. Pauldrons rested on both of Rosa’s shoulders and they were strapped to a leather chest plate. On Rosa’s arms were leather braces.  She looked very much a warrior queen.

                “I’m going to get my things together,” Rosa said and walked past Rydia toward the stairs. Cecil followed her.

                “We’ll be down in a little while,” he assured her.

 

                Rydia paid them little heed and instead returned her attention to breakfast. She gobbled down another biscuit and then poured herself a mug of tea. It was fragrant and herbal, and she held the mug in both hands smelling it.

                Several minutes passed before Rosa and Cecil returned from the room upstairs. Rosa was carrying her pack, and Cecil, his own. Both of them had contented smiles on their faces, but all Rydia could do was guess as to why.

                “Rydia, how about you and I make a visit to the kitchens?” Rosa asked.

                The prospect of more food made Rydia’s stomach rumble. “Sure,” she answered.

                “Follow me,” Rosa said, walking across the room toward the next set of stairs. Rydia followed with her tea in hand, unwilling to set it down.

                The two women descended the staircase, Rydia trying desperately not to slosh any of the hot tea on her hands.

                “I thought there weren’t many people left in the castle,” Rydia pointed out, keeping an eye on each landing.

                “There aren’t,” Rosa replied, “but one of the cooks is still here making food for the soldiers.”

                “Oh,” Rydia answered. She wasn’t particularly used to the workings of castles—who did what, where people lived, and what function they served.

                They reached the base of the tower and Rosa led the way across the west courtyard, navigating doorways and passages easily. Rydia wondered how she had missed all of this in her meanderings the day before, as Rosa led her deeper into the underbelly of the castle.

 

                At last they reached a long low-ceilinged room with pots and pans hanging from exposed beams and chimneys rising from the corners. Rydia had never seen a kitchen so large before and stopped dead in her tracks when they arrived to stare at the sheer space of it.

A stout gray-haired woman stood in the center of the room with a large wooden mixing spoon in her hand. Before her was an enormous bowl filled with some kind of batter.

                “Good morning, Lady Rosa,” the woman said while licking a finger, and looking up.

                “Good morning Greta,” Rosa answered, crossing the room to greet the other woman.

                “You’ve come for those provisions, I assume?” Greta asked, long hanks of hair escaping from her loosely tied bun.

                “Yes, if you don’t mind,” Rosa replied.

                Greta pointed to a rack of bread cooling near a wall. “Take the loaves from the bottom. They’re heartier, better for long travels.”

                Rosa walked over to the rack and, taking an old flour sack, began to place the loaves inside.

                Greta, in the meanwhile, stared at Rydia with an eyebrow raised.

                “D’ya know your hair’s—”

                “Green as grass?” Rydia finished for her. “Yes, I know.”

                “So long as you know, I guess it’s alright,” Greta responded, pursing her lips in a suspicious manner and returning her attention to her mixing bowl.

                Rydia stood awkwardly off to one side of the room, and cautiously sipped her tea. It had cooled off nicely on the walk from the tower, and she enjoyed the flavor while simultaneously hiding half of her face with the mug. She always ended up feeling that she was the object of scrutiny whenever she entered a room, and felt a pang of jealousy that Rosa had been blessed with hair the color of gold and not, well, grass. It was odd, she mused, because she hadn’t felt that jealousy since she was seven years old.

                 Rosa had finished loading her sack with loaves and looked up at Rydia. “Do you think you could hold on to this?” she asked.

                Rydia set her mug aside, and held onto the sack. It felt like boulders had been placed inside and she opened it up to look. Dense, coarse bread was within, the kind that stole all the moisture from a person’s mouth.

                “Don’t make that face,” Rosa warned her with a look. “It really is good for you.”

                Rydia was dubious on that account, but Rosa had moved on to another rack in the kitchen. There were several cloths covering circular lumps, and Rosa pulled a few of the cloths back to reveal large wheels of cheese. She picked one and also hoisted it into the sack, nearly bowling Rydia over with its weight.

                “Good. I think that’s everything,” Rosa said, clapping flour from her hands.

                Rydia was relieved. She wasn’t sure if she could carry anything heavier than what the sack already weighed.

                Greta looked over at them. “Lady Rosa, before you leave, make sure to stop by the mage dormitories again. I had Quinn bring over some ethers from the village for you to take along. If you’re still fighting that bastard Golbez, you’ll need all the help you can get.”

                “Thank you, Greta. For everything,” Rosa told her.

                “Someone’s got to look out for you young people,” Greta informed her, waving her spoon in the air for emphasis.

                Rosa smiled and then took hold of half of the sack, sharing the weight of it.

                “How about we visit the mage dormitories next?” she asked, leading Rydia out of the kitchens.

                Her enthusiasm seemed odd to Rydia who had deemed it too early in the morning for this much heavy lifting.

                They left the kitchens and Rosa began another circuitous journey through narrow corridors. Rydia labored under the weight of the sack even though she shared it with Rosa and was nearly out of breath when they entered the mage dormitories from a side door.

“Where is Kain?” she asked, having not seen him all morning. “Are we leaving him here?”

She wondered if her interest was too plain and after the look Rosa gave her, she thought maybe it was.

“He’s still coming with us,” Rosa answered distractedly. “He’s been taking care of other matters this morning.”

Rydia chewed on her lip, unhappy at this news. She really had been hoping that Astrid would be coming with them instead of the dragoon, or at least, be another addition to their group. Logically, she knew why Kain was coming along, they needed his sword arm in battle. Still, she wondered about the young woman’s drive and determination. Even after learning the truth about her father, she was plowing forward anyway. She was ignoring the truth or she had put it behind her. Either way, the other woman was made of stern stuff.

“Did you really have to lie to Astrid?” she asked.

Rosa looked over at her. “What’s brought this on, all of a sudden?”

“I know that this is your home, and these people are your friends, but I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell her what happened to her father?”

Rosa sighed. “Astrid has worried about her father since the day she could crawl—since the day she knew what an airship was. He’s put her through so much already, I couldn’t lay this on her. We’re still in the middle of a war. I need her to stay whole and strong for what’s to come.”

                “What if she could have handled the truth?”

                “I didn’t want to take that risk. There will be other times to grieve. When this war is over. If we survive.”

                “Will you tell her then?”

                Rosa paused. “Of course.”

                Rydia looked her in the eye. There were some things, she decided, that she just wouldn’t understand.

                Rosa had finished collecting ethers and potions and they returned to the hallway. Their journey back to the west tower was spent in silence. Rydia had already introduced every controversial topic she could think of that morning, and having received limited answers, decided she was looking forward to returning to the skies and getting away from this place.

 

                It took several hours for Cecil and Rosa to finish their errands. Cecil spent most of the morning in meetings with various persons, and Rosa busied herself with the distribution of provisions. Food had been parceled into each person’s pack; as well as, a few spare cloaks, new bedrolls, and the ethers and potions Rosa had acquired earlier. Rydia had begun to feel like an accessory by the afternoon, standing around unable to do anything as Rosa and Cecil rushed about taking care of business.

                Finally, by mid-afternoon, Kain reappeared and that was when Cecil declared they set out for the north.

                The company of four carried their equipment and packs to the dry docks and climbed aboard the airship. Rydia was surprised to find Astrid and the other engineers waiting for them.

                “Good luck!” Astrid announced, walking up to each of them and clasping their hands. The engineers followed suit, giving hearty well wishes and last minute instructions to Cecil.

                “Keep your head up,” Astrid whispered to Rydia with a smile before she stepped across the gangway off the side of the ship.

                Rydia watched the red-headed woman go with one brow canted. It seemed that she should be giving encouragement to Astrid, not the other way around. Still, the words heartened her.

                “Good-bye and thank you!” Rosa called over the ship’s side to where Astrid and the others stood on the dry docks. Cecil meanwhile, walked to the captain’s wheel and began the ship’s propellers.

                The ship churned to life and slowly rose from the ground.           




                Rydia clung to the railing, watching as the castle and its city became miniatures.

                This was her second time in an airship*, but it felt like the first. She’d been so distraught on their journey from the underworld, that she hadn’t been able to appreciate what it meant to really be flying. Now, she closed her eyes and felt the wind rush past her as they rose. It was exhilarating to be up so high, defying gravity.

                Cecil pointed the airship northwards and they left Baron far behind them, skimming the clouds.

 

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The air was cooler up high, but the sun shone brilliantly and Rydia enjoyed spending hours just staring over the railing. She felt every turn of the wheel, every dive, and every climb. Cecil was taking them directly to Mount Hobs, and as she stared down at the landscape below; mountains, then desert, she wondered what had become of Mist. She could always ask Cecil to change course, but the thought of being back in the ruins of the village frightened her. She wasn’t sure what she’d find. She didn’t know if she wanted to find out.

                She returned her attention to the desert below and saw a glimmer of Kaipo, blue and colorful in the middle of a bed of sand. She couldn’t believe that only half a year ago, she’d been walking across that same desert and fording underground rivers in the mountains. It was a journey from another time.

                They passed the great desert of Kaipo and flew over mountains, between the peaks. The mountains fell away to hills, then jagged coast; and finally, Cecil began to descend, details becoming more crisp and less obscured.

                Before them stretched a long isthmus that was crowned by distant mountains. The sea glimmered on either side.

                The airship flew low to the ground, while everyone searched the area for signs of the hovercraft they had left behind.

                They flew for nearly an hour, circling back several times, but finally Rosa cried out and pointed. Cecil steered the ship in the direction she had pointed, and sure enough, buried beneath a thatch of tall grasses, the hovercraft was waiting for them.

                Cecil set the airship down near the hovercraft, gears and mechanicals grinding with purpose as the ship came to a halt. Once the ship had settled and the propellers disengaged, Kain climbed down the side of the ship and into the tall grass. His armor glimmered an icy gray in the sunlight, Rydia observed, as she climbed down after him. When she set foot on the ground, the grass nearly rose to her shoulders. She didn’t remember it being this tall the last they were here. If it was, she would have certainly gotten lost in it.

                “Over here,” Kain said, fording through the grass.

                Rydia and Rosa followed in his lee, pushing stray blades of grass out of their way.

                When they reached the hovercraft, they had to pry grass and weeds away from it. It looked like it had become part of the landscape. Sun and rain had done a number on it as well, and Rydia looked at it, dubious that it would still work.

                Cecil approached from behind them and climbed over the craft’s pontoons. Once inside, he dusted off the control toggles. Plants had begun to grow in the fabric of the seats, but Cecil ignored them. He flipped a few switches, turned a few toggles, and slowly and unsteadily the machine came to life. It sputtered and lurched, but eventually rose completely off the ground.

                “Thing still works,” Kain muttered in surprise.

                Cecil set the hovercraft down again and turned it off.

                “Well at least we know it can still hover,” Cecil announced, climbing out of the machine.

                “How do we attach it to the airship?” Kain asked. “Did Mid give you any proper instructions, because I know the ones he gave me weren’t very clear.”

                Cecil stared at the hovercraft with his arms crossed, his brows crawling together in consternation.

                Rydia looked between Cecil, the hovercraft, and Kain, hoping someone knew what they were doing.

                “I’ll figure it out,” Cecil finally replied, walking back to the airship, his long cloak whipping out behind him. The rest of them followed, climbing the ladder to stand on the deck.

                Cecil strode over to the captain’s wheel and began the ship’s propellars. The ship rose back into the air and Cecil maneuvered it so that it was above the hovercraft. Mostly.

                He looked at Kain, dismayed. “Are we over it?” he asked.

                Kain was leaning over the side, waving his arm in different directions. “More to the right! Right! Too far! Stop!”

                The airship lurched and jumped as Cecil wrestled it into position.

                Cecil gripped the wheel with white knuckles.

                “Left,” Kain directed him, still leaning over the railing. “Good. Lower the hoist.”

                Rydia and Rosa were curious, and decided to peer over the side as well.

                The hoist was lowered on a long cable and as it descended, the jaws of it opened.

                “Keep going, keep—“

_Crunch._

Cecil’s curse was masked by the sound of unholy grinding and snapping coming from below the ship.

Kain gave Cecil a flat look.

“You said to keep going!” Cecil shouted from the wheel.

“Yes, but not drop it all at once!” Kain argued.

Rydia and Rosa shared a look and moved away from the railing. Rosa climbed the stairs to the captain’s wheel to keep Cecil calm. Rydia opted to exploring the cabins below deck.

It took more than an hour, lots of jolting, and lots of expletives before anything was accomplished.

But while Cecil and Kain were having a loud conversation about the durability of the cable, Rydia remained below decks, staring out the windows. Rosa found her there when she tired of the argument between the men and sat beside her.

“You first cast fire there,” Rosa said softly, nodding in the direction of Mount Hobs.

“ _Years_ ago,” Rydia answered.

 Rosa regarded her quietly for a moment. “I still can’t believe it,” she confided.

“I’m a completely different person, but the world is still just as I left it. Like waking up from a dream.”

Rosa stared out the window for several minutes, lost in recollections. “You were so small. You’d been taken away from everything you knew and asked to do things that should not have been asked of one so young. And here you are, grown up.”

“We were in such a hurry then,” Rydia answered slowly, remembering. She smiled suddenly. “I remember dreading the journey to Mount Hobs, hoping that someone would come up with another way to get past the ice.”

“It was Edward who convinced you to cast fire in the end.”

Rydia laughed. “He said if he couldn’t be a crybaby, I couldn’t either.”

“Rydia, I’ve been meaning to ask you…no,” Rosa said, stopping herself.

“What?” Rydia asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Rosa took a deep breath. “If we retrieve the crystals and the war is ended, are you going to be staying in the overworld? Will you return to Mist?”

Rydia paused and looked at Rosa. She honestly hadn’t considered it. “I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “Part of me expected to return to the Feymarch, but…”

“You don’t know which to choose now that you’ve already lived two lives.”

Rydia nodded.

“You’ll always be welcome in Baron,” Rosa told her, and Rydia knew she meant it.

Rydia smiled at her. “Thank you.”

In truth, thinking about returning to Mist left her stomach in knots. If she didn’t have Mist, she had the Feymarch, but the words the Eidolons had left her with—that they would not allow her to stay—kept playing through her mind.

“Do you miss it?” Rosa asked.

“Miss what?”

“Mist.”

Rydia considered the question. Mist felt like a hollow memory these days, a nightmare. All of its people were gone, her mother…it was a shell.

“I don’t…” she began, “I feel like I should miss it more than I do.”

With some measure of alarm, she realized that she didn’t remember her mother’s face clearly anymore.

“I’m sorry, Rydia,” Rosa told her. “That you’re caught in such an odd spot.”

Rydia attempted a smile. “It’s not your fault.”

There was a pause for a few minutes. “But I suppose I’ll have to return to Mist eventually. I’m the last of the Summoners—the High Summoner. If my people die off completely, so will the Eidolons.”

“The Eidolons would die?”

“The Summoners and the Eidolons are symbiotic,” Rydia explained. “We need each other. They provide us protection and strength, and our magic allows them to survive.”

“I had no idea the two were so closely bound.”

“That’s probably why Golbez wanted us destroyed. If the Eidolons were gotten rid of, there would be less opposition in the war.”

“That dragon you summoned in the dwarf castle, he did seem surprised.”

Rydia smiled fiercely. “His fake Eidolon was no match. He’ll be sorry he made an enemy of the Feymarch.”

Rosa gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s good to see you fired up again.”

Rydia smiled and ran a hand through her hair. “I guess I’m more like the Eidolons than I think, sometimes.”

Rosa looked out the window again, and then raised a brow.

“Looks like they’ve figured out the hovercraft,” she mused.

Rydia looked as well and noticed that the mountains were coming closer and closer.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To Fabul,” Rosa told her.

Rydia considered the destination and looked at her friend again.

“To speak to Yang’s wife?”

“Yes, that’s part of it.”

“Only part?”

Rosa sighed. “We need to speak to the king as well.”

They fell into companionable silence after that, watching the landscape slide beneath them.

Eventually, Rosa left her and Rydia, already fatigued, settled into one of the hammocks in the cabin, dozing off.

 

 

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The airship approached Fabul through storm clouds. Rydia felt the change in the air before she saw it, coming up from below decks to see why the temperature had suddenly soared.

                Huge black clouds overwhelmed the sky, and lightning arced through them furiously, leaving white streaks in her vision.

                “We need to get closer to the ground!” Kain was shouting at Cecil.

                “I know!” Cecil shouted back, his brows angled in concentration as he wrestled with the wheel. Wind whipped raindrops like horizontal daggers as the ship plummeted downward and Rydia’s ears popped with the rapid descent. She crawled back below decks again and saw Rosa at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the handrail with an ashen face.

                The ship plummeted again, and they both clutched the rail.

                “What’s going on up there?” Rosa gasped.

                “Cecil’s trying to get below the clouds!”

                “This wind is going to take us down whether we want to go or not!” Rosa shouted over a peal of thunder.

                Sure enough, Rydia was thrown against the wall as the ship lurched again.

                “I thought he was captain of the Red Wings! Doesn’t he know what he’s doing?” Rydia shouted back.

                “Yes—but he had a knack for breaking Cid’s ships doing insane maneuvers!” Rosa revealed, holding on for dear life.

                The ship continued its downward journey, and Rydia clenched her eyes shut in anticipation of a horrible crash. At last the ship came to an unexpected halt, and the force threw both women onto the floor.

                Rosa lifted herself up after a few minutes. “We’ve stopped?”

                Rydia strained to hear the propellers but all she heard was rain pelting the planks. Suddenly the door to the cabin opened and Kain and Cecil both bolted in, dripping wet.

                Cecil nearly tripped over Rydia on his way down the stairs in the dark.

                “What happened?” Rosa asked, getting out of the way.

                “This storm is too bad to keep going,” Cecil huffed.

                They all moved into the cabin away from the stairs.

                Cecil fumbled in the dark for a lamp and lit it.

                “I’ve never seen a storm this bad,” Kain admitted.

                Rydia shot him a look. “Could it have something to do with the crystal of Air going missing?” she asked acerbically

                “You know very well that it is,” he answered dryly. “That doesn’t change the fact that there’s a storm out there and we’re stuck in it.”

                “Stop it, you two,” Rosa scolded them.

                Rydia and Kain simply stared at each other in the flickering lamplight.

                “It doesn’t help that Cecil nearly smashed the hovercraft with his bang-up landing,” Kain went on.

                Cecil frowned, and then smiled somewhat menacingly. “ _My_ bang-up landing?” he asked, his voice low.

                “Yes. _Your_ bang-up landing,” Kain repeated.

                “I’d like to see you land an airship in the dark through heavy rain!”

                “At least I’m not flying around the world making house calls when what we _should_ be doing, is going to Eblan to get the crystals back!”

                “Stop it!” Rosa shouted. “This is absurd! We need the help of the other kingdoms in case we fail to get the crystals a second time—especially if we fail!”

                “You shouldn’t even be here!” Kain retorted. “We should have left you in Baron where’d you be safe!”

                “ You sound like my mother!”

                “Maybe you should listen—she speaks sense!”

                Rosa’s mouth hung open. “You spoke to her, didn’t you. You spoke to my mother!”

                “You did _what?”_ Cecil asked, turning on his friend.

                “She trusts me more than you,” Kain explained off-handedly to Cecil, and then to Rosa. “Someone had to assure her you were being looked after.”

                “Looked after? I can look after myself.”

                “Why on earth would she trust you more than me?” Cecil demanded.

                “Because _you_ are a threat to her daughter’s honor*,” Kain retorted.

                “Now there’s an irony,” Cecil muttered.

                Rydia watched the argument with all the curiosity she could muster. The polish gone, the politeness and civility erased—here were the true feelings of her companions.

                “I can’t believe you wanted to leave me behind,” Rosa continued.

                “I can’t believe you volunteered,” Kain countered.

                Sensing that the conversation was about to take a turn for the worse, though, Rydia sat down, staring into the lamp.

                “Well,” she said. “We’re already most of the way to Fabul. We may as well keep going.”

                They all stared at her.

                “Rydia’s right,” Cecil said reluctantly. “I’m going to sleep. We’ll keep going in the morning—to Fabul.”

                He left the room, leaving the rest of them. Rosa and Kain shared a look across the table, before they too went in opposite directions.

                Rydia sat at the table and watched the storm through one of the portholes until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. The raging skies led her to wonder if maybe they, and not the missing Crystal of Air, had something to do with the weather.

 

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By morning, the storm had passed and a blast of cold followed behind it. Cecil flew them onward, piloting through gray skies. The airship landed in a field near the city proper of Fabul, and they disembarked onto the sodden ground. Mud sucked at Rydia’s boots, making squelching sounds with every footstep.

Once Cecil and Rosa had joined her on the ground, Rydia glanced upwards and saw Kain still standing on the airship.

                “I’m not welcome in Fabul,” he told Cecil, remaining firmly planted at the railing. “It’s best you go and I look after the ship.”

                Cecil looked at his friend for a long minute. “We’ll return in a few hours,” he said.

                They left Kain behind, Cecil leading them to the city amidst puddles and boggy road. When they reached the gates, Rydia saw that they had been patched together with timbers and the guards on duty looked unusually young.

                Even though they had come very near, the gates remained closed before them.

                “This doesn’t bode well,” Rosa murmured to Cecil who had squared his shoulders.

                They stood just outside the gate, until one of the guards called down to them.

                “State your business!”

                “It’s Sir Cecil. We’ve returned with tidings of the war,” Cecil called up to the guard.

                “You can’t be Sir Cecil, he was a dark knight, and where is Master Yang?”

                “Please,” Rosa interceded. “We need to speak to your King. It’s a matter of great importance.”

                One of the other guards, a man who looked a bit older than the rest, rushed over and whispered into the first guard’s ear.

                The man’s eyes went wide. “Lady Rosa? Open the gate!” he shouted.

                “Open the gate!” another guard echoed; and another, as word of their arrival spread along the wall.

                The gate creaked open, timbers straining.

                They stepped past it and were met by another guard, a man wearing loose red robes that revealed his arms to be corded with muscles.

“My apologies,” he said with a bow. “The appearance of an airship in the field led us to believe you were one of Golbez’s servants come to deliver some kind of ultimatum. I’m to understand that you wish to speak to the king.”

“We do,” Cecil replied.

“Follow me,” the guard said, leading them along the main avenue.

                On their journey along the circuitous road, homes and shops rose on either side of them. They were tall, tiered buildings; half stone, half wood. Their roofs had curved pitches, cresting into elegant points that were adorned with pinnacles pointing to the heavens.

                In some sections of the city, broken beams littered the side of the road. They were burnt, some nothing more than cinders.

                This was the aftermath of the battle.

                Rydia felt caught in a wave of bewilderment, like the past and the present were colliding again.

                As they continued through the city, Rydia caught sight of someone rushing to meet them through the crowds of people.

                “Lady Meiling!” Rosa called to her.

                “Lady Rosa!” Meiling called back. “You’re here,” she observed, finally reaching them. She looked at each in turn, pursing her lips, “Where’s my husband?”

                “Meiling, we—”

                “No, don’t tell me here,” she interrupted Rosa with a curt gesture. “Follow me.” She turned and swiftly led them through the last stretch of city and past the second gate into the castle. Guards stepped aside at their approach. All of them were young, a few with their heads recently shaved; scabs from the brusqueness of the process evident on theirs scalps.

                Meiling’s robes swished over the flagstones as she led them across the courtyard and into the main hall. She wore subtle tones of red and gold that were exotic in Rydia’s eyes, but not ostentatious. She was a commanding presence and her dark braid swayed with her stride.

                The doors to the throne room opened before them without Meiling having to wait or utter a word. It seemed they had been expected. As they passed the threshold, Rydia saw a man had just finished whispering something to the king, no doubt to announce their arrival, but he backed away once he saw Meiling and the rest of them.

                The king remained seated, his expression grim. He wore a sling on his arm and looked much older, Rydia noticed.

                “I can scarcely believe it,” the king announced, gesturing at them with his good arm.

                “I thought you mad to fight evil with a dark blade, and I thought you lost after Leviathan’s attack, yet here you are. Not only are you alive, but you have conquered your darkness.”

                He looked each of them over, his gaze shrewd.

                “But not all of you that set out have returned…Lady Rosa, it is good to see you well and safely returned,” he said to Rosa who nodded politely. “And who is this fair creature with the emerald hair?” he asked, spying Rydia in the back of the group.

                Rydia hastily bowed. “It is Rydia of Mist, your Majesty.”

                “Curious. I sense magic at work. You were but a child the last you were here.”

                The king then looked at Meiling, whose hands were firmly clasped before her. He read her anxiety clear as day and decided to cut the pleasantries short.

                “Now tell me,” he said, “You would not have come here unless something had happened. Where is Yang Fang Leiden?”

                It was Cecil who answered, explaining their sad tale. He left much out, but as he explained, Rydia felt herself reliving all of it again in her mind.

                The king and Meiling’s expressions remained set, and neither of them said much of anything aside from asking a question here and there for clarification.

                When Cecil had finished, Meiling excused herself from the throne room.

                They watched her go, Rydia barely restraining tears. None of them had really expected her to remain after the weight of such news.

                “This is a grave loss,” the king said sadly, stroking his beard. “I had hoped to have Yang take this seat of power. He was a brave man, a mighty captain, and a fierce friend…. But have you really come all this way to tell us of his passing?”

                “Your majesty, there is much more to tell, I fear,” Cecil admitted.

                “Very well,” the king replied, nodding. “Ladies, I would not have you stand and listen to matters that will no doubt bore you. You may wait somewhere more comfortable while we discuss the business of war,” he said, gesturing to the door.

                They were both escorted out into the foyer by a guard.

                Once the door was shut behind them, Rosa walked toward the great hall. Rydia followed her, even as the white mage changed course and climbed a staircase that led to one of the castle’s ramparts. All of this was vaguely familiar, but Rydia had to keep reminding herself that for Rosa it hadn’t even been a year since they’d been here, fighting for their lives upon the parapets.

                Rosa’s long strides told Rydia that there was a purpose behind their journey, and she wondered if Rosa was looking for Meiling.

                “Do you think she’s alright?” she asked.

                “She just lost her husband, of course she’s not alright,” Rosa replied, and then paused. “I’m sorry, Rydia. It’s just, with everything that’s happened—”

                “I know,” Rydia replied, cutting her off. “You’re wondering how you would feel if it were Cecil instead.”

                Rosa stopped suddenly and looked at Rydia with a storm of emotions on her face. She turned away again before she brought any of them to bear. Instead, she let out a forced breath. “I can’t even imagine,” she said quietly, resuming her original pace.

                They continued walking, until they’d reached one of the higher ramparts. That was where they found her, staring out over the city.

                Meiling heard them approach without turning around. “I’ve seen many things these last few years,” she said for their benefit. “But to see the city gates breached, homes burnt, and all for a crystal, I have to wonder what’s happened to the world. And now my husband is robbed from me as well,” she turned to face them. “Lady Rosa, is there any point to fighting this war? Have we any hope of winning?”

                Rosa stepped forward, joining Meiling at the crenellations, and covering the other woman’s hand with her own. “It has always been a bleak war,” Rosa answered. “But never have the nations been more together in spirit; and that, I think, is a great reason to hope.”

                “For a healer, you certainly speak like a warrior.”

                “If I speak like a warrior, it is in no small part to your husband. He fought bravely. He gave his life to save us and an entire kingdom. These actions mean something.”

                “But will they mean enough? How can we fight a man with so much power?”

                “Surprise,” Rydia answered from where she stood, shocking the both of them as well as herself. “Golbez never expected us to fight back,” she explained. “He never expected us to defeat his Fiends, he never expected the Eidolons to continue to be a threat, and he didn’t expect us to go after the crystals directly. We’re an unknown.”

                “Surprise, you say. It didn’t help my husband.”

                “It helped all of us, even your husband. He fought alongside us bravely at every opportunity.”

“He died an honorable death, then?”

                “He did,” Rydia answered, her voice wavering with emotion. “He saved us all.”

                “It’s true,” Rosa seconded, tightening her grip on Meiling’s hand.

                Tears formed at the corners of Meiling’s eyes, and a few spilled over. She hastily swiped them away.

                She turned toward the city again, masking her tears with anger. “That man!” she shouted. “To leave me at such a crucial time! Never here when I need him and always here when I don’t.”

                She breathed hard, mastering her emotions. “Whatever plan that Cecil is explaining to the king, I hope that it works. I really do. You will be in my prayers; and now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, walking past the both of them toward one of the castle’s great towers.

                Rydia watched her leave, but felt that things were still left unsaid.

                “Let her go,” Rosa told her.

                Rydia glanced at Rosa, confused.

                “She is a woman of strength. She would never show her grief in public. Sometimes it’s better to be alone.”

                Rydia frowned, “I just wish there was something more we could do to comfort her.”

                Rosa took Rydia by the shoulders and led her toward the staircase that had brought them here. “I think she’s been comforted by us enough. The rest will have to come from others. At least she knows that he died a noble death according to their beliefs.”

                Rydia considered that, and allowed Rosa to lead her back to the main hall where Cecil was waiting for them.

                “Is everything well?” Rosa asked.

                Cecil nodded, pushing himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “The king is well aware of the situation and has agreed to help.”

                “That’s excellent news,” she replied. “Where next?”

                “Troia,” Cecil answered.

                “Troia?” Rydia asked.

                “It’s time we paid Edward a visit,” Cecil told her with a small smile.


	15. The Two Edwards

 

                They were escorted out of Fabul by guards as an honorary gesture. Many of the citizens came to stand at the side of the road to watch them pass, some waving flags and wishing them luck.

                It was the first time Rydia had ever been held as a hero, and it left her uneasy. She didn’t think she deserved their praise but she couldn’t help but stare at the crowds in awe. The gravity of their situation struck her just then. The four of them, even Kain, were all that was standing between Golbez and his goals. Just the four of them had the means to foil his plans while the rest of the world was too beaten, too young, or too old to fight back*. A lump formed in her throat as they were led down the city streets to the main gates. These people were counting on them.

By the time they returned to the airship, the leaden clouds had darkened further. Dusk was settling over the lands of Fabul.

                When they climbed aboard, Kain was waiting for them.

                “Well?” he asked. “Did they agree to your plan?”

                Cecil nodded. “They have.”

                “You have got to be joking,” Kain said shaking his head. “One last suicide mission, and they’ve agreed to it.”

                “We don’t have much else to lose at this point,” Cecil answered, walking again to the captain’s wheel.

                “And now where? Not Eblan, I’m guessing,” Kain asked dourly, following in Cecil’s footsteps.

                As if to contrast his friend’s dark mood, Cecil’s tone was bright. “We’re going to Troia,” he said. “After that, Eblan.”

                 “So long as it’s somewhere on your list of house calls,” Kain muttered.

                Cecil grinned and started the ship’s engine, completely ignoring Kain’s malcontent.

 

                They flew for several days toward Troia. Fabul and Damcyan disappeared behind them and the vista was replaced by the sea, a long glittering stretch of it. When land again appeared on the horizon, there was a general sense of concern. Trees, whole swaths of them, were barren along the coast.

                “It’s not the season for the shedding of leaves,” Rosa noted with a frown.

                “All the trees along the border are dying,” Cecil confirmed.

                Rydia stared over the railing, at the verdant lands of Troia. Most of the kingdom was still cloaked in green, but the edges were brown and diseased, as if some blight had struck.

                “This is the result of the earth crystal’s absence,” Rosa said, disgust evident in her voice.

                Kain said nothing, but he too looked over the blighted land.

                They flew over the vast forest until mountains appeared in the west. Springing from a high cliff a waterfall billowed mist over a lake far below. A castle and its city glimmered in the sunlight on the eastern shore of that same lake.

                Cecil began their descent. He set the ship down in a field devoid of trees and they disembarked. As they approached the city, walking beneath flowering arbors, Rydia couldn’t discern where the city’s walls began. There was an enormous hedge of green separating them from the buildings of the city, but no stone that she could see. They walked through a large opening in the hedge and she saw a hint of mortar; but what she thought to be an innocuous hedge, was in fact a nest of thorned vines covering the city’s walls. She stared at them as they walked past, entering the city proper. There were streams alongside every path within the city and each home had watermills attached to them, churning away. Everywhere Rydia looked, women were bustling about the city. Almost all of the villagers she saw were women, in fact, save for a few older men.

                She looked at Rosa inquiringly. “Where are all the men?” she asked.

                Rosa smiled. “Troia is famed because it is a nation of women.”

                “A nation of women? How is that even possible?”

                Rosa shook her head, still smiling. “Well, that’s…just one of the many mysteries of the world.”

                They kept walking, following a wide road that led to Troia’s castle. It was an ornate structure, more decorative than defensive. Still, it had an ethereal quality to it. It appeared to be part of the landscape itself.

                They were granted access through the castle’s gates by women wearing what amounted to little more than undergarments. Their gowns were thin and short cropped and did little to hide what lay beneath. Rydia felt a blush creep onto her cheeks, and Rosa frowned, boring her gaze into the back of Cecil’s head.

                Cecil had the sense to keep his eyes nailed to the hallway ahead, and led them through the corridors toward the castle’s west wing.

                They stepped out onto a terrace that wound around to another set of rooms, but just before they reached the doors, Cecil stopped them.

                “This is where Edward has been recovering from his injuries,” he told them, “The doctors caring for him do not like when he is disturbed for too long, so bear that in mind.”

                Rydia felt a fluttering in her chest. She was excited and nervous all at once. She was excited to see Edward after so many years, but nervous because she wasn’t sure how he’d react to her sudden change in age.

                Cecil opened the door and stepped into the darkened interior. There were lamps along the wall burning low. A woman in long purple robes appeared before them, arms crossed.

                “Back to finish him off?” she asked tartly. “If you keep showing up, he’s never going to recover properly.”

                Cecil bowed slightly. “It’s important that we speak to him,” he explained. “We have good news to convey.”

                “Very well. But don’t overexcite him.”

                She left the room behind them, shutting the door. Rydia watched her go, realizing belatedly that Kain hadn’t followed them in.

                Cecil walked around a corner and heard Edward’s sibilant voice announce his surprise. Then she and Rosa rounded the corner and Rydia saw his face light up with joy and tears.

                “Rosa!” he exclaimed. “You’re safe!”

                Rosa gave Cecil a warm glance. “Cecil came for me just as I’d hoped,” she said.

                Edward beamed up at the two of them. “I’m so glad—so glad you were able to rescue her, Cecil,” he said, relieved.

                Then he turned his gaze on Rydia and one of his brows quirked upwards. He glanced at Cecil, and then back at Rydia. Rydia felt her stomach jolt with uncertainty.

                “It can’t be,” he said, disbelieving. “Rydia?”

                Rydia nodded as tears slipped down her cheek.

                Edward slipped his legs over the side of his bed and stood rather shakily. Rosa reached out to lend him support and with her help, he stepped haltingly toward Rydia, gripping her soundly. “Rydia!” he cried into her green hair.

                “It’s me,” she assured him.

                “But you’ve grown so tall! Look at you—a woman now!”

                Rydia laughed through tears. “It’s so good to see you, Edward,” she told him. “I had heard you were injured, but I’m glad to see you recovering.”

                “How is it,” he asked, sitting back onto his bed, “that you’ve grown so much in such a short time?”

                “Magic,” she answered simply, smiling.

                Edward looked at Cecil for confirmation and Cecil nodded. “Rydia returned just in time to save us,” he said. “She’s every bit the adult you and I are.”

                Edward smiled appreciatively. “I’m so glad to see all of you here.”

                “We’re glad to see you as well,” Rosa told him.

                He smiled, but it slowly turned into a frown. “The war can’t be over, though, can it?” he asked. “And there are a few of you missing. Where is Tellah? And where are Yang and Cid?”

                The mood of the room became somber.

                “Don’t tell me—” Edward burst out. “Tellah didn’t…did he?”

                “In the Tower of Zot,” Cecil answered carefully. “He cast his most powerful magic. But he…he cast more than his body was able to withstand.”

                “No…” Edward murmured. “No, he can’t have…”

                “He avenged Anna to his last.”

                Edward buried his face in his hands and let out a deep heart-wrenching sob. “Why. Why did he have to go and do that,” he lamented. “Yang and Cid are lost too, aren’t they,” he added bitterly.

                No one had to respond. The answer was plain on all of their downcast faces.

                Edward sobbed into his hands and no one stopped him. This was not the time for chastising, not the time to put a stopper on all emotion. For Edward, who had not heard any of the news along the way, it was like a hammer blow. They let him grieve for several minutes, until he mastered himself again.

“ You’re here for another reason than just to see me,” he said thickly, tears still on his cheeks.

                “Mostly, we wanted to see you,” Cecil explained.

                “The other reason?”

                “We’ve become aware of another airship fleet in Baron—one that was sabotaged by Cid, but might be made to fly again. We’re asking the northern kingdoms for any volunteers to fly them in the hopes that we can create a force to fight the Red Wings.”

                “There are more airships!” Edward exclaimed. “So you’ve come to Troia to ask for aide.”

                “We have. Baron’s remaining forces are few, and we need the help of the other nations, such that it is.”

                “If you’re planning something this desperate, the war must have taken a turn for the worse. What’s happened?”

                Cecil hesitated in answering. Instead, it was Rosa who explained.

                “Golbez has acquired all of the crystals from the overworld, and has been acquiring the crystals in the underworld as well.”

                “Underworld?” Edward asked, sitting up straighter. “Such a place exists?”

                “It is the realm of the Dwarves and also where they have kept the crystals safe for many hundreds of years. We attempted to steal back the crystals in the Tower of Babil while Golbez was out on a foray, but we failed. The crystals had already been moved above ground by the time we reached the tower. He only needs one more crystal to enact his plan.”

                “Only one crystal remains,” Edward repeated. “So things really are dire, aren’t they.”

                “We mean to speak to the clerics.”

                “I should go with you,” Edward began.

                Rosa placed a hand on his shoulder. “As a healer, I can’t agree to that,” she warned him.

                “Another mission, and I can’t be of any help to you,” he lamented.

                “You don’t always have to fight to be brave,” Cecil assured him.

                “I just feel so useless laying here day after day,” Edward complained.

                “You’ve already done your part,” Rydia told him fiercely. “Let us take care of the rest.”

                Edward smiled faintly. “You sound like Tellah,” he told her, his smile crumbling. He slowly turned again to Cecil. “Where will you go next?”

                “We will journey to Eblan, to find a path into the Tower of Babil.”

                “Eblan,” Edward repeated. “That is a mysterious place. I don’t think any of our people have ever dealt with that kingdom, though Fabul has on occasion.”

                “Cid told us that there is a supposed path under the mountains that leads into the Tower. We plan to steal back all of the crystals before he can accomplish whatever he’s set out to do.”

                “Do you have any idea what Golbez’s plans are?” Edward asked, looking at each of them.

                “Something about opening a path to the moon,” Rosa answered, frowning.

                “To the moon?” Edward replied, confusion evident on his face. “Why on earth would he be trying to get there? Is such a thing even possible?”

                “With all of the crystals?” Cecil asked. “Perhaps it’s a weapon of some kind, but who knows.”

                Edward shook his head, a hank of his sandy hair falling into his face before he pushed it back. “I’ve taken up too much of your time. You should go speak to the clerics* before they retire for evening prayers.”

                Cecil nodded. “Will you be alright?”

                Edward gave him a wan smile. “I will be,” he assured them.

                “Edward, please take care,” Rosa told him, bending down to give him a parting embrace.

                “Rosa, I hope you remind him on a daily basis how lucky he is to have you by his side.”

                She smiled knowingly. “Oh,” she began, casting a glance at Cecil. “I most certainly do.”

                Edward chuckled at that and this time it was Cecil’s turn to shake his head.

                Rydia was next to say her goodbyes, but for some reason, no words would come out. She glanced at Rosa who laid a hand on Cecil’s shoulder, steering him toward the door.

                “You can stay for awhile, Rydia. We won’t leave without you, don’t worry,” Rosa assured her, walking with Cecil out onto the terrace.

Once Rosa and Cecil had left the room, Rydia pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed, avoiding Edward’s eyes.

                “How are you really, Rydia?” he asked.

                “Me? I’m fine,” she lied. “How are you?”

                “Recovering day by day,” he answered, giving her a penetrating look which she hesitantly returned. “You, on the other hand. You look lost in another time, far away from here and now. Not a trait I remember seeing often in you.”

                “I was also seven the last time you saw me,” Rydia pointed out.

                “You had a strong personality, even then. Not one to give in to defeat.”

                “I miss Yang,” she sighed. “I miss having someone to talk to. Someone not from Baron.”

                “He certainly can’t be replaced,” Edward agreed. “He was a good friend and a steady ear.”

                “And now we’re going to Eblan,” she went on. “A kingdom no one knows anything about.”

                “You don’t want to return to the Tower,” Edward surmised. “Was it really as strange as the rumors say?”

                Rydia remembered the endless staircases and the unusual lights…Yang’s voice shouting at them to run… “It was alien,” she admitted, ignoring the sudden pain in her heart. “Unnatural.”

                Edward paused, thinking. “You know, I’ve heard that there is a crowned prince in Eblan. Perhaps he would know of a path if one exists.”

                “I didn’t know Eblan had a royal family,” Rydia answered dully.

                “The Geraldines have had a hold on the throne for many generations now. They may be a secluded nation, but they are not so isolated that everything about them remains a mystery.”

                “A kingdom of secrets,” she repeated. “But I don’t think anything will be left when we arrive. We heard it was destroyed while we were climbing the tower of Babil.”

                “Another kingdom fallen,” Edward said sadly. “So not a single one escaped the terrors of this war…”

                “What will you do once you’ve recovered from your wounds?” Rydia asked.

                Edward’s face darkened as he stared at his hands. “Rebuild my kingdom. Properly honor the dead.”

                Rydia also stared at his hands. The hands of a bard; calloused, strong. “None of this seems real,” she said distractedly.

                “Rydia would you mind…my lute?” he inquired, nodding meaningfully toward where his instrument lay on a stand.

                She went and retrieved it for him.

                He ran his fingers over the strings, closing his eyes. To Rydia, it seemed as if he was listening to the melody of the strings before he’d even struck a chord. And then he began to play.

                He played a tune so chilling, it raised goosebumps on her skin. The sound filled the entire room and Rydia imagined that it had spread across the rest of the castle as well. Rydia closed her eyes as he continued to play. Images floated through her mind, memories of all her companions. Most of them were hers, some were not. It was a heart wrenching dirge and it made her feel as though Edward’s grief was her own exactly. Tears poured down her cheeks, but then he changed the tune. The chords changed, the melody quickened. Her spirits rose with the notes and rang a new but no less hauntingly beautiful tune.

 

Hours later on the airship flying away from Troia and its green forests, the song lingered in her mind. She stared out across the ship’s railing and imagined he was beside her still plucking the strings of his lute. It brought her some comfort, but it also brought her grief closer to the surface. All of the companions they’d lost. Would she lose more of her friends? What if Cecil or Rosa--would any of them return?

                She looked over at the captain’s wheel and saw Rosa standing beside Cecil, both of them grimly watching the horizon. On the other side of the ship she spied Kain. He too was watching Cecil and Rosa, but the look in his eyes was remorseful, wistful. Rydia wasn’t sure what it meant, but for the first time she wondered what the dragoon was thinking. What he was feeling. Was it jealousy he felt toward Cecil—was that the proper emotion? She’d spent so much time around the Eidolons that the intricacies of human interactions were foreign to her.

                She returned her eyes to the ocean below. It was vast and unchanging, but somewhere in that great big blue was the kingdom of Eblan. And their next quest.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Cecil flew the airship around the southern coast of the island of Eblan. The Tower of Babil rose from the island’s mountains like a spearhead and the sun reflected off a thousand windows and spires on their heavenward journey into the clouds.

Cecil enlisted Kain’s help in detaching the hovercraft from the airship, and after that was completed, the ship was again set down. Cecil chose a field near the still smoldering remains of a castle and its village.

Cecil didn’t say a word once they’d disembarked, he just picked a direction and started walking. Rydia understood immediately what this place was. That what they were about to enter had once been the kingdom of Eblan. The buildings that had once stood along roads and lanes were little more than matchsticks still smoking. As they picked through the rubble, none of them said anything, but Rydia could sense the destruction of Eblan laid heavy on everyone's hearts. The damage was similar to Damcyan in magnitude, but Rydia had been told that Eblan held no crystal. They had been destroyed merely because of their proximity to the Tower.

The four of them entered the castle through its rent open gates. They listened for signs of survivors, but the devastation was total. Fire had taken most, heavy bombardment had taken the rest.

Rydia trailed fingers over a stone railing, sadness in her eyes.  She thought Mist was a tragedy, but this was an entire kingdom. What had it been like before its fall, she wondered.

Hallways and corridors passed them by, but they maintained a straight course. Finally, they entered the throne room to find a toppled throne. The damage here was severe.

The invading force had left graffiti on the walls in blood, a mockery of whoever had died defending the castle. Rydia shivered and Rosa held a hand over her mouth to forestall a gasp.

Remarkably, there were no bodies to be found for all the blood. They were either buried or…Rydia didn’t want to think of the alternative. The thought of the warriors of Eblan being desecrated in death was more than she could bear.

Cecil tore a map from the wall and spread it on a table that was missing a leg. There were characters written on it that Rydia had never seen. They were beautiful, but the script also had the feeling of swordsmanship, linear and precise, but…organic.

“Who were the ninja, exactly?” she asked.

“The Sons of Shadow,” Kain answered, almost reverently.

Cecil looked up just then, sparing his friend a knowing look.

“Sons of Shadow?” Rydia asked again. She’d heard Edward use the name as well.

“That’s how the clans of Eblan are known,” Kain explained. “They are masters of stealth and their skill with blades is extraordinary.”

“You’ve been hunting for _years_ for information about the clans*,” Cecil said with a small half-smile.

“It’s true, I’ve studied all I could about Eblan, but it’s a kingdom of two faces—the public and the private. I wish this wasn’t how I would be granted access…”

“Kain, can you read this?” Cecil asked, pointing to a symbol on the map.

Kain studied the map for a minute. “Fascinating…” he mused.

“Well?”

“I can only decipher part of this, but it looks as though there are caves to the southwest just as Cid said. But how he knew of the caves…”

“Where are the shallows?” Cecil wondered aloud, squinting at the map.

“There are several trails on this map, but I would say the closest is near this castle,” Kain pointed out. “Head south toward where the hills begin.”

“We should take this map with us,” Rosa suggested, rolling it up.

They retraced their steps through the castle and returned to the plains*, purpose driving their steps. The long grass whipped Rydia’s legs as she walked. In the distance she could see wisps of flame, only these were moving. She imagined they were probably the same beasts they’d encountered in the Tower, the flame hounds that had plagued them for weeks among the endless winding stairs.

They kept their distance, but Rydia remained wary until they reached the hovercraft.

It was somewhat of an awkward business getting the four of them crammed into the hovercraft, but once they had climbed aboard and the engine sputtered to life, Cecil flew them over the grass and hills, and finally into the surf. When they had left the sand and rock of the coast and the spray of water misted their skin, did Rydia find Rosa looking at her intently.

“What are you thinking, Rydia?”

Rydia looked out at the water, a thousand things on her mind, really. “I remember when we were taking this craft to Kaipo to help _you.”_

“When I was sick with desert fever,” Rosa recalled, nodding. “When Edward found his strength and I found Cecil.”

She and Cecil shared a quick glance, while Kain averted his own gaze. Rydia was beginning to understand, to comprehend, the emotion called jealousy. In fact, she felt uncomfortable on Kain’s behalf. Just a little.

“You had desert fever?” Kain asked, a little heated.

Rosa blinked. “I spent several weeks in Kaipo in the care of an elderly couple. I thought you knew.”

Kain shot Cecil a disapproving look. “I thought it was incurable—how did you survive it?”

“With this hovercraft,” Rydia explained. “And Edward’s help retrieving the sand ruby.”

“This hovercraft is Damcyan’s invention, then,” Kain confirmed.

“It was all they had left after the bombardment,” Cecil said. “I wonder if anything will likewise be found of Eblan.”

“Rubicante struck with a vengeance. If anything or anyone survived, they’ve likely gone to ground.”

Cecil nodded grimly, paying attention to the shoals that spread out for miles in front of them. After some distance, stark columns of rock rose up from the water and surrounded them on either side. The closer to the mountains they traveled, the denser the obstacles became. Waves broke on the rock pillars, splashing mist onto everyone aboard the hovercraft.

“It’s no wonder no one’s had relations with this kingdom—their coastline is impassable,” Kain observed, gripping the hovercraft’s side as Cecil sped them through the rock field.

Rydia gazed out at the rocks and waves anxiously. There seemed to be nothing but destruction in their path and it didn’t bode well for their return to the tower. Would the Fiend of Fire be waiting for them?

Cecil began to angle them closer to land. The mountains were now very close, and their roots dipped into the ocean. Cliffs loomed and grottos dotted their stony facades.

“How will we know which entrance to use?” Rosa asked, looking into each one.

“They all look likely to flood once high tide rolls in,” Kain said, his eyes scanning the cliff sides as they flew past.

“I think I see something up ahead,” Cecil announced,flying them closer to the cliffs. Rydia didn’t see what he did, but she kept looking for an entrance of some kind—ropes, ladders, anything. Cecil flew the hovercraft directly toward one of the cliffs, and at first no one knew what he was doing until he passed a bend in the rocks and they noticed a spit of land that was accessible from the water. With each yard closer, the more land was revealed to them. What at first looked like a small sandy beach, led up a steep switch-back that followed the cliff face.

Cecil flew them higher and higher until they at last hovered over a large ledge on the cliff. Here they found signs of an entrance into the mountains.

“Cecil,” Kain muttered. “How on earth did you see this from down there?”

“I glimpsed the torches set near the entrance,” Cecil replied, focusing on setting down the hovercraft.

Rydia turned to see what Cecil was talking about and saw the torches burning near a large cavernous hole. Vines had grown over most of the entrance and it looked like the face of some ancient beast, with teeth ready to devour them. She let out a long breath she’d been holding and followed everyone out of the hovercraft.

 

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When they entered the cavern, the sounds of the crashing waves below echoed like thunder. The floors were slick but passable and after a ways stumbling in the half-light, they reached an old bridge that looked to be almost as old as the cave itself. The boards creaked ominously under their feet and Rydia noticed that the pool beneath was dark. She wondered idly if anything was waiting there for unsuspecting victims to fall in.

They had just crossed to the other side of the bridge, when bats descended on them, bats with a wingspan the length of a grown man. Rydia and Rosa both shrieked with surprise.

“Get between us,” Cecil barked, taking flanking positions with Kain. Rosa and Rydia both wedged between the paladin and dragoon, but not before Rydia felt a claw tear into her left shoulder. She cried out in pain and lashed out with the butt of her whip.

Rosa began an incantation of healing and Rydia’s wound was soon mended, but the scent of blood had drawn others. There was a flurry of wings and claws in the dark, but Rydia was able to see Cecil cleave the wings off of one bat and watch as it fell shrieking to the ground—fangs still bared. Kain gripped the long handle of his axe and brought it down in one crushing blow, leaving the creature cloven in two.

Rosa’s bowstring twanged and arrow after arrow sung through the damp cavern air.

All told, five bats lay slain. The four of them stood back to back, breathing hard. After a minute, Cecil and Kain had cleaned off their weapons, and the corpses were left behind as the group continued picking their way through the dark.

They entered a natural doorway in the rock, Rosa lighting the way with a faint seeing spell, and at that precise moment, Cecil came to a halt. Rosa bumped into him and gasped, making out a thin blade pressed with its flat against Cecil’s throat. A haze or smoke of some kind had blocked out most of the passage, and when the light from Rosa’s spell hit it, it diffused, giving the impression that the sword was suspended in the air.

A voice called out to them in a language that was unfamiliar. Cecil held up his hands in surrender.

“Who are you?” the voice asked again, thickly accented.

“Friends of Eblan,” Cecil answered.

“What is your business in these caverns?”

This time it was Kain who answered. “To breach the tower and take back from the enemy what he has wrongfully taken.”

There was quiet conversation in Eblani between their aggressor and another person, and then the sword was removed from Cecil’s throat. “You may pass. The Seneschal will determine how much farther your quest will take you,” the man said.

Cecil nodded, and as the smoke cleared, the passageway became visible.

The ninja led the way, and Rydia noticed that even without smoke, their clothing allowed them to blend in with the rocks. They were wearing a motley of grays and browns, and their faces were also shrouded so that only their eyes showed. It was a strange effect, and she felt she understood why they were praised for their stealth.

The narrow passageway stretched for several yards and as they continued, torchlight filtered into the path ahead as well as the scent of food and people.

Survivors?

The thought that someone had survived, cheered her more than anything had in weeks.

The passageway opened into a large chamber that was lit by many torches. Once the four of them all stood in the chamber, several hundred people stopped what they were doing to stare. Then, within an instant, swords and knives were drawn.

Cecil’s hand went for his shield, when the man accompanying them held up a hand and said something else in Eblani.

Everyone stared at them cautiously, then reluctantly sheathed their weapons.

Kain explained in a whisper. “The enemy of our enemy is our friend…more or less.”

“That’s comforting,” Cecil responded, still eyeing the villagers.

The man who had led them was suddenly gone. Somehow, Rydia wasn’t surprised.

“Leave it to the Sons of Shadow to plot resistance under Rubicante’s nose,” Kain added with an approving smile.

“Do I hear metalwork?” Rosa asked. Sure enough, the sound of knives being sharpened on whet stones echoed away in another cavern.

“They have a whole small society down here,” Cecil remarked.

“When you thrive on stealth, I suppose living underground comes naturally,” Kain said. “Thank goodness. We might find help here after all.”

“There must be someone in charge. Perhaps it’s the Seneschal that guard told us about,” Cecil added. “We should find him and see if the rumors of a passageway are true.

They walked forward, passing villagers. Most of the people they passed were garbed in simple cloth, but a small portion wore hoods and masks. There were merchants with wares and smiths with small sharpened objects that looked like darts that Rydia had never seen before. Women were sewing garments together, and children ran underfoot, making the best of their unusual living arrangements.

“Thank goodness,” Rosa sighed. “Even the women and children are safe.”

 

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They entered a smaller chamber attached to the larger one that was lined with crude beds. It smelled thickly of herbs and sickness. Men and women were rushing between the beds to change bandages and make poultices. There was no glow of white magic that Rydia could see; no magic whatsoever. She wondered if many of these people would die, or had already died, because of their lack of magic.

                There was an older man with gray streaking his hair and beard standing near two masked men that were pointing in the direction of Rydia and the others. The man looked over at them and nodded, then left his companions to approach them.

                Kain and Cecil bowed, and Rydia and Rosa felt compelled to do the same.

                “I’ve been told that you are outsiders,” the man said, his voice rich and deep, and indicative of one in authority.

                “We are, sir,” Cecil answered.

                The corners of the man’s mouth quirked upwards. “I see we understand each other. Tell me, where are you from?”

                “We are from Baron,” Cecil explained.

                The man’s brows pinched together briefly and he stared at each of them anew. “Baron,” he repeated. “You’re not much of an invading force.”

                Cecil shook his head. “As we told your guard, we came seeking a path into the Tower of Babil.”

                “What business do you have in that evil place?” the man asked. “You—two knights of Baron and two young ladies?”

                “This war began because a man named Golbez coveted the crystals of power. In the past year he has put all of his effort into making war on the nations that held them and taking the crystals by force. They currently reside in the tower, and while Golbez continues to seek out the crystals, we plan to enter the tower and steal back the ones he already possesses.”

                The man looked at each of them. “That sounds like the highest order of foolery. Just the four of you?”

                “We had heard that you were also trying to find a way to access the tower.”

                The man’s expression darkened. “Ever since the destruction of our capitol, our prince has been overseeing the excavation of a tunnel to the Tower of Babil, that we might avenge our fallen king and queen. These caves were once mines, and rumors are that there was a long abandoned passage that led to the tower, but I highly doubt its existence. Some of these caverns are ancient and collapsed, yet still he searches.”

                “There’s been no success?” Kain asked.

                “There have been a number of injuries, talk of fires, and explosions, but no secret doorways into the tower.”    




                “Will you allow us to travel the caverns for ourselves?”

                The man sighed.

“I am the seneschal of Eblan’s royal house,” he explained. “It is my responsibility to look after its members, and while I believe in giving his highness some useful deployment while our people recover, I think this whole thing is a fool’s errand. I’ve not seen him for some time now, though. I pray he’s not done something rash again. If you find him, please stop him from getting himself killed. He has an ill tongue, yes, but he is a kind man and a benevolent prince and I’d very much like to see him returned. I’m afraid we can’t sustain another blow after the fall of our king and queen.”

“You have our word. If we find your prince, we will return him to you.”

The seneschal looked them over once more, gauging them. “Very well. You may travel the caverns ahead. Be cautious, they are not for the faint of heart. I would send some of our ninja with you, but I’m afraid our forces are limited already.”

“No, of course not. We understand,” Cecil assured him. “We’ve seen our share of dangers.”  
                “Good luck. Speak to the men at the gates and they will let you through.”

The seneschal walked away, returning to the men and women in the beds whose wounds needed tending.

“To face Rubicante alone—is he mad or merely a fool?” Kain muttered, shaking his head once the seneschal had left them.

Rydia was wondering much the same thing, and she had yet to face any of the Fiends herself.

“Let’s find this gate,” Cecil said instead, navigating them back into the main chamber of the cave. On the opposite side, they saw men in masks guarding a gate that led into darkness. They walked toward it, and the men on guard drew their blades.

“We have permission from the Seneschal,” Cecil announced, oozing confidence. Whether or not he needed to be more convincing, the men relaxed their stance at his words and slowly sheathed their swords. They spoke to each other and nodded in agreement. They budged the gate open and gave each of them a piercing look as they stood against the wall to allow their passage.

Rydia furtively glanced at each guard as they passed, feeling that somehow they knew something the rest of them did not. Nevertheless, the dark path before them left her feeling that they were about to enter into an eternity of the unknown. She hoped they didn’t get lost. For their own sake, and for the sake of the prince who seemed determined to rush to his own death.

 

 

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The cave felt old, very old. Older even, than the water caverns. The air was stale, tomblike. So it made sense that its denizens were also fit for a tomb. Bats, snakes, rats, and on occasion, skeletal warriors who bore the arms of eons past, accosted them in the caverns and chambers.

                They fought their way through rooms that were charred black from what looked to be explosions, and followed passages that had torches crudely driven into the walls to light the way. Light was a luxury in the confusing passages as torches were scarce and many had burnt out long before.

                Hours slipped away navigating the passages. They had just passed another charred opening when Cecil nearly tripped over something, or rather, someone, on the floor.

                The body on the floor moaned. Rosa immediately kneeled down to examine the man.

                Rydia watched with morbid fascination as Rosa lifted tattered clothing and leather away from wounds.

                She began a soft incantation and little by little the man revived.

                “Who…are you people?” he asked in a heavily accented common tongue.

                “We are…” Cecil began, but then hesitated, looking at Kain.

                “We are enemies of the Tower,” Kain finished for him.

                “You are looking for a path to the tower like our prince.”

                “Yes,” Kain confirmed, stooping low.

                “Please, if you find him—“ the man’s rasping cough interrupted his words. “Don’t let him do something rash.”

                “Who did this to you?” Cecil asked.

                “A man, a warrior. Maybe he was greater than a man…”

                “He attacked you?”

                “We have been excavating these passages for weeks…and keep finding traps blocking our path. One day we found a man in red waiting for us, saying he thought he’d sensed prey wandering too close to the tower.”

                “Your prince, he searches alone?”

                “There were…others. If they’re still alive.”

                “Why is pursuing the Fiend of Fire so important to you?”

                “You are outsiders. You wouldn’t understand.”

                “For your king and queen. For your fallen comrades.”

                “We are…a proud people. To be so badly beaten is an insult to our name. Our heritage.”

                He coughed again.

                “Why were you left here?” Rosa asked. “Did they abandon you?”

                “I am-was-badly wounded. I would only have slowed them down.”

                “Left for dead,” Rosa clarified.

                “Time is of the essence. We have no mages and healers among our people. Mine would have been a noble death. A death in battle.”

                “You won’t die,” Rosa contradicted him. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, and you should heal on your own.”

                “You are a white mage, aren’t you?”

                “I am.”

                “Please. Find our prince,” he pled and then lost his strength, falling into unconsciousness.

                “What should we do with him?” Kain asked.

                “We can’t just leave him here,” Rydia protested.

                Rosa rummaged through her pack, as if suddenly inspired, and found a peculiar item. It looked like a small door, complete with frame and lintel. Rosa placed it in the man’s palm, opening the miniature door and then stepping back.

                The man was engulfed in a flash of light and vanished, taking the small door with him.

                “What was that?” Rydia asked.

                “An Exit charm,” Rosa answered. “He should find himself on the ledge outside the cave that we used to enter.”

                Rydia looked at Rosa wide eyed. She hadn’t known such items existed.

                “We need to keep going,” Kain said. “If the Eblanese are close to the tower and Rubicante has been setting traps, it means we’re getting close after all. We can’t let them face him alone. They’ll stand no chance.”

                The four of them picked up their pace and carried on. Blood stains left trails on the ground and there was further evidence of fire. They found two more bodies, neither man could be saved.

                “It seems the Eblanese have put up a good fight,” Kain observed, searching each man.

                Rydia felt bile rise in her throat and forced it down. More death. More killing. Where did it end?

The hours ticked away. The cave had become closer and closer, little more than a crevice to navigate. Torches became fewer and darkness reigned in greater stretches. The environment was playing games with Rydia’s senses and she began to see shapes that she wondered were really there at all.

                They were several miles deep into the caverns when light suddenly bathed the path ahead, illuminating a split in the rock that hadn’t been apparent before.

                There were voices as well.

                “We meet at last. I’ve been looking forward to this, Rubicante!” shouted a sure and confident voice that echoed down the passage.

                “Should I know you from somewhere?” a low and melodious voice answered.

                “Don’t play games—I’m Edge, prince of Eblan.

                “Eblan?” the other voice asked lightly. “I’m afraid I do not know the place of which you speak.”

                “Then let me help you remember!” the prince’s voice shouted.

                Cecil’s pace quickened, and they stumbled over the uneven ground in the dim light in an effort to reach the prince. A large flash of light temporarily halted them, erupting from the chamber ahead and blinding them after so much time in the dark. The roar of flames and a surge of heat flowed into the passageway and Rydia felt her skin bead with sweat. The flames dissipated and the air cooled again, like breath released. The sound of the voice who could only be the Fiend of Fire was also cool, frighteningly so.

                “Pitiful,” it mocked. “Allow me to show you true flame.”

                Another blaze blasted through the air. This one knocked everyone to their knees. The air sizzled and the cave walls hissed. Then it faded, the light dimmed, and there was an ominous pause.

                “You may have strength worthy of pride, but not nearly enough to think of challenging me. Hone your skills. I’ll look forward to facing you again when you have.”

“Come…back here!” the prince shouted angrily.

Cecil continued their dash through the narrow passage, once they’d all found their feet, and finally breached the chamber. Bits of wood were still glowing red and a few pieces were on fire, but the room was empty save for the man lying scorched on the floor. He was badly burned. His arms and legs were blistered and his clothing was singed through in places. The cloth that remained must have been enchanted and the mask he wore over his face, had also miraculously survived. They rushed to his side.

                “Are you all right?” Cecil asked.

The prince sat up, wincing. His burns had begun to ooze and looked painful. “I lost, and he got away—of course I’m not alright!” he snapped.

“We came to find Rubicante, too, and the Crystals he holds,” Rydia mentioned, in the hopes that it might prove to him that they were friends, not enemies.

“Rubicante’s mine!” he exploded. “You stay out of this! I’m going to put an end to him with—with my own hands!”

“Your enemy is an elemental archfiend, Your Highness,” Kain said coolly.

 “You’ve seen his strength for yourself,” Cecil seconded.

The prince rolled his eyes until they rested on Kain. “Don’t mistake me for some pampered prince,” he sneered. “The Eblanese royal family is heir to the secrets of the ninja masters of old. I don’t need help from lesser men!”

“Enough!” Rydia interrupted, exasperated. “I can’t watch another person go off to die. First Tellah and Yang…And then Cid, too…All of them…all of them--!” she said, bordering on hysterics, unable to keep a lid on her emotions anymore. “Your own people have died!” she cried.

The prince’s fierce expression suddenly crumbled, only to be replaced with utter bewilderment. “H-hey, I didn’t…I mean…”

“Rydia…” Rosa soothed, resting a hand on her shoulder.

The prince looked each of them over with an eyebrow raised. “Who _are_ you people?”

                “Rubicante is the strongest of the four archfiends. Whether we can even hope to defeat him, I cannot say. But we have no choice. We must take back the Crystals he holds!” Cecil explained.

                “Crystals?” the prince asked, frowning. He looked each of them over again, closing his eyes with a sigh. “…It doesn’t look like I have much choice,” he shrugged, wincing. “I can’t leave a pretty girl crying. Let’s do this together, then—just this once.”

                Kain snorted. “Too weak to stand, and still as arrogant as could be. It’s nigh on comical. Rosa, do you think you could…?”

Rosa nodded and began a healing incantation—cura, if Rydia’s ears didn’t deceive her. The prince’s burns began to close as the green glow of healing spread across his skin, his flesh becoming smooth and unblemished.

                He looked at his skin in amazement, then at Rosa with wariness. In an instant, his concern was gone, and he’d brushed himself off. He stood and clasped Rosa’s hand vigorously, so vigorously, that she nearly lost her balance. “Thank you, my dear!” he said with a glint in his eye. “You’re not so rough on the eyes yourself!” he paused, glancing significantly at Cecil and Kain. “Right, then! Time for us to break into the tower, now that we’re all fast friends!”

Rydia wiped tears from her cheeks, and glared at the prince, startled by his behavior. “That was an awfully fast recovery,” she muttered.

Rosa was pursing her lips, trying to hide a blush, and followed after Cecil and Kain who were trying to keep up with the prince who had struck off without them.

“We were told you were looking for a way into the tower,” Cecil called to the prince.

“Yes. I was,” he agreed.

“Did you find one?”

Edge turned and flashed them a confident grin. “Of course. I don’t go stumbling into the dark without making sure I find what I went in looking for.”

Kain frowned. “We spoke to your Seneschal, and he mentioned why you wanted to seek entry to the tower. But why do you want in so badly that you would challenge Rubicante alone?”

Edge halted in front of a large closed doorway, hands on hips. He hung his head, staring at the ground. “When we were attacked, everyone who hadn’t gotten underground was slaughtered. My parents…they were an exception.”

“I thought they perished in the siege.”

He half-turned toward them. “That’s what I was told, but I don’t believe it.”

“You’re planning a counterattack based on a gut feeling alone?” Kain asked.

Edge’s expression turned fierce. “Among my people, it is better to die in battle than to be taken alive. There are secrets among our people that would be useful to the enemy if they were discovered. Rubicante is holding them prisoner and I won’t stand for it,” he said with force.

“You’re seeking revenge?” Kain confirmed.

“Naturally. What, did you think that I was going to go after some crystals? That’s Baron’s concern, not ours. We have no interest in crystals, no need for them.”

Cecil’s brows drew together. “Baron’s concern?”

 Edge tilted his head back and made a face. “Of course. You’re from Baron, aren’t you? That makes sense, then.”

“Why would you assume that we’re from Baron?” Kain asked.

“Because he’s a knight on some noble errand, and you’re an ass.”

Kain’s lips curled into a snarl, but he refrained from rising to the taunt. Edge’s eyes narrowed conspiratorially at the other man’s discomfiture.

“Your Highness,” Cecil said in warning.

“Call me Edge,” the prince interrupted him. “And I’m only returning the jab.”

“Because I called you arrogant?” Kain scoffed.

“Because you insulted my abundant talents. I won’t apologize for my arrogance,” he answered with a tight smile.

Rydia couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or joking, but his attitude worried her.

“We were told to return you to your people and prevent you from doing anything rash,” Cecil said, changing the subject.

Edge rolled his eyes.

“You can return me when the war is over,” he said offhandedly.

“But your people—

“Are decimated and clinging to a thread,” Edge interrupted him. “Even if I survive, if this war isn’t put to an end, what point is there?”

Kain looked at Cecil. “I admit, that’s the first sensible thing he’s said yet.”

Cecil narrowed his eyes. “As far as your seneschal is concerned, we found you in the tower.”

Edge smiled knowingly.

“Cecil!” Rosa objected. “You gave your word!”

Cecil looked Edge in the eye, and the prince didn’t budge. “We could use someone with his skills in the tower,” Cecil said.

“It’s settled then. We’re all going together,” Edge announced. “You can help me kill that bastard Rubicante, and I can help you steal some crystals.”

“I guess we’re stuck with him,” Kain uttered under his breath.

Rydia arched an eyebrow. So this was Eblan’s prince—an adult who acted like a child? She wasn’t sure when it had started, but a headache had begun to rage at her temple. And yet, like it or not, they were now a party of five once more.


	16. Chapter 16

The doorway Edge led them through seemed like it was carved out of the cave walls themselves. The doors were decorated with friezes from a forgotten time, depicting the building of the Tower of Babil and a people who seemed to be floating in the sky above it observing its construction. Rosa’s sight spell shed light on more of the door as they passed, and Rydia also noticed the crystals carved into the doors, glowing in iridescent colors in what looked to be different corners of the world. She frowned, wondering who had made this door and if it was in fact the tower builders themselves. Who _were_ the tower builders for that matter?

Given the age of the cavern, the doors were well-balanced and opened easily on their hinges.

The door led to a passageway, and the passageway led to a walkway that spanned the dark crater between the mountains and the tower itself. Sunlight spilled between the mountain peaks on the rim of the crater and cast strange shadows into the chasm, seeming to be absorbed by the maw of the underground. The walkway they stood upon was partially covered, more of an elaborate bridge than anything, with spindly scaffolding keeping them suspended. The prince led the way, surefooted on the narrow path, and the rest of them followed, staring up at the tower’s height and around at the depth of the crater. Seeing the tower this close in the sunlight, Rydia thought it was a beautiful sight; if only its occupants hadn’t stained its steps with blood and peril. The bridge finally ended at the tower itself. There were no paths leading along the tower’s girth, and no door that they could see leading in.

“How are we going to get in?” Cecil asked, resting a hand on the tower’s wall.

“You forget you’re traveling with a ninja,” Edge reminded him, tapping the wall with his knuckles and leaning his ear against it.

“What are you doing?” Kain asked, dubious of the prince’s strange actions.

“Who’s first?” the prince asked, ignoring Kain completely.

No one had any idea what he was talking about, so when no one answered, Edge grabbed Cecil’s gauntleted arm, took one step in the direction of the tower wall, and then vanished like a trick of the light.

Rydia blinked, shocked by the suddenness of it. Rosa opened her mouth to utter a protest, but before she’d even gotten a sound out, Edge had returned.

“Where’s Cecil?” Rosa demanded, stepping toward the prince.

“Who’s next?” the prince asked nonplussed. “You?” he asked Rosa with an assessing glance once she’d come to an ungainly stop in front of him.

“Right, then,” he replied, taking Rosa by the arm and vanishing with her as well.

 Kain took a quick step forward at Rosa’s disappearance, and Rydia cast a sidelong glance at the dragoon, curious at his reaction.

It wasn’t long before Edge had returned to their side of the tower again.

“Well?” he asked, looking between Rydia and Kain. Kain crossed his arms, looking as though he wanted to give the ninja a few choice words, but refrained. Noticing Kain’s ire, Edge’s eyes fell instead on Rydia. She felt a moment of panic when he grabbed her arm. She pulled away reflexively, but his grip was sure, and then she too was caught in his spell and vanished. It felt strange, like momentarily stepping out of existence and then back into it again. It had the tang of the void, and it left her a little breathless when Edge deposited her on the other side of the wall beside Cecil and Rosa. She caught Cecil’s eye, and backpedaled away from the wall to gain her bearings.

“What--” she began, her eyes adjusting to the false lighting that streamed along the floor and walls.

“That’s magic I’ve never seen before,” Cecil agreed.

Finally, Kain arrived with Edge at his side, appearing out of the air like a large fish caught on a line. Whether or not Kain was surprised or baffled, he gave no sign of it, but his irritation with the ninja was still very evident. Edge, on the other hand, looked tired and a bit smug, and Rydia wondered how much his spell had cost him.

“Edge, what was that?” Rosa asked, still a touch of heat in her voice. “I’ve never seen anything of its kind before.”

“That’s true enough,” he said wryly, “You might be outsiders but I can at least tell you that many of my people are masters of shadow stepping—it comes in handy in certain situations.”

“Ninjutsu,” Kain expounded.

Edge shot him a suspicious look, as if Kain had just grown a tail.

“You know more than you should,” Edge answered carefully, studying the other man. “But yes, ninjutsu. Let’s get on with this journey, shall we? Heart to heart chats aren’t going to get us anywhere.”

                Rydia sighed, both intrigued by what Edge had revealed and annoyed at his evasiveness. Cecil merely gave Rosa an unimpressed look and turned without a word, shifting his shield so it rested more comfortably against his back, and began walking.

 

………………..

 

The newly formed group of five started their journey through the twisting corridors of the Tower. The blinking lights and strange consoles that pulsated with energy, created strange optical illusions and made it seem as though the hallways were alive, more so than the last time they were here.

Edge added another element of strangeness and unpredictability to their group. With Yang, there had been a rhythm, a balance. With Edge…there was none of this. He didn’t speak strategy with Cecil or Kain, but rather acted according to his own whims, and it almost got him killed more than once. Rydia was used to Cecil knowing when she was about to cast a spell and getting out of the way; and while she was very accurate in her castings, she couldn’t help if a stray bolt of lightning or a flame leapt farther than she intended. Edge had learned this the hard way.

He was nearly blasted by a thundaga spell gone awry when he’d gone on the offensive without paying attention to what she was doing. His expression was one of utter surprise and a touch of what might have been fear, when the lamia he’d been about to attack was a smoldering heap and he himself standing just inches away with his silver hair standing more on end than usual.

It was with no small amount of satisfaction that Rydia observed the prince’s demeanor then change from being smug and sarcastic to a wary and brooding countenance. It was as if he had ceased regarding them as a nuisance, and instead as warriors who deserved his respect. He didn’t seem to like this very much.

However, feeling guilty for nearly boiling him out of his skin, Rydia walked beside the ninja prince, hoping camaraderie might smooth out the rocky start they’d had.

Several hours passed in silence. Rydia took it to mean that the prince’s pride was still smarting and let him be. She enjoyed the lack of his boasting, but she had started to wonder how him being a part of their group was going to work.

“What is it that you do, exactly?” he asked her while they walked, feigning disinterest.

Surprised to hear his voice after so long, she raised her brows. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Your magic. What are you, a black mage?” he asked more directly.

“I’m a summoner,” she explained.

“A what?”

“A summoner,” she repeated.

“Is that an extra special mage, because you’ve lost me,” he complained.

“I can summon Eidolons to fight beside me in battle,” she elaborated.

“Eidolons?” he asked, his brows slowly crawling together.

Rydia stared at him, trying to figure out how exactly to explain her relationship with the Eidolons.

“They’re magical beings,” she began, carefully spacing out her words.

The look he gave her was flat. “We’re not speaking a different language, I can understand you perfectly.”

“Then why do you look so confused?”

“My people have only had dealings with the larger kingdoms like Baron and Fabul, not with any Summoners. So how would I know what an _Ei-do-lon_ is?”

Rydia pursed her lips, “I don’t know, maybe you’d heard about us,” she answered tartly.

He gave her a measured look and then turned his attention elsewhere without another word.

Rydia sighed and also looked the other way, exasperated.

Edward and Edge, two princes so very different from each other, the differences were staggering. His flippant attitude and explosive temper were one thing, but what intrigued her more, was his magic. What had he called it? Ninjutsu? There were no incantations—no words, no careful weaving of meaning and intent. He was not drawing power from the Crystals, but from somewhere else…himself? Was that possible? She was hoping that he might open up and admit some of it to her, but so far he had revealed very little other than his own ego.  At least, that was the word Rosa had used for it.

Every once in a while she noticed him gazing off into dark corners; even coming to a halt just to stare. On one occasion, she paused with him.

“See something?” she asked.

For a moment he said nothing, frowned, and ran a hand through his spiky silver hair. Amazingly, it held the shape he had tousled it into. Rydia glanced at it a little jealously—she had never been able to get her hair to cooperate in similar fashion or in any fashion at all.

He smiled broadly, enough so that she could see it past his mask, or maybe it was his eyes that gave it away. “Nope,” he answered lightly, and then his tone sobered in a strangely conspiratorial way. “Why, were you worried about me?”

Rydia neutralized her expression, narrowing her eyes. “You’re going to get left behind if you keep stopping to look at everything.”

“Sorry,” he said, raising his hands in a placating manner, “Just a force of habit.”

“Getting left behind?” Rydia asked, a little confused.

Edge shook his head. “Keeping an eye on the shadows.” He winked at her and continued walking. Rydia rested her hands on her hips and stared after him for a minute, incensed, until she realized that _she_ was going to get left behind. She quickly sprang after him, having to move doubly fast to keep up with his long strides.

She then found herself fascinated by that as well. He walked like he was gliding on air, purposeful, graceful, no movements wasted. She’d never met anyone who could do _that_ before. Yang was graceful, yes, but in a different way. Edge _was_ stealth, even though his battle tactics left a lot to be desired. She was still studying his feet, when the entire group came to a halt. Rydia almost bumped into Kain, but stopped herself just in time.

She looked up to see Edge giving her a strange look. How infuriating! How could he observe everything going on around him, even with his back turned? She blushed, a little embarrassed, and caught Cecil’s eye.

“We’re going to rest here for a moment,” Cecil explained. It’s been hours since we entered the Tower, and I suspect it’s going to take a lot longer to reach the floors where the crystals are being held.”

“If the caves of Eblan are level with the crater, we can expect it to be at least another dozen floors,” Kain informed his friend.

Cecil nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on this side of the hallway. Edge, can you keep an eye on the other?”

Edge gave a slight nod, and slid his pack from his shoulders. He grabbed his canteen, and walked off a short distance into the corridor, away from the group. There, he leaned casually against the wall, taking a few swigs from the canteen, and continued to stare intensely into nothingness.

Rydia sat down beside Rosa and sipped her water quietly. Rosa glanced significantly at Edge, and then at Rydia. “What do you think of the ninja prince?” she asked softly.

Rydia’s eyes widened, and she wondered why Rosa wanted _her_ opinion. “He’s…” she began thoughtfully, and then stopped. “He makes no sense. One minute he’s serious, the next he’s joking. One minute he seems perfectly calm, and the next he’s so furious, I can literally feel the air around him crackling with energy.”

Rosa laughed quietly. “So I’m not the only one,” she mused.

Rydia was relieved she wasn’t the only one who was having a hard time taking the prince seriously. She glanced at him again, and noticed that he was staring into the distance again like someone who was looking for something. She cocked her head to the side, wondering what it was he was looking for. She didn’t think it was Rubicante, the fiend of fire. There was something different on his face, something close to grief. Was this his true face, she wondered.

Once again, he turned slightly and saw her staring at him. He gave her a quizzical look, and just like that, put on a different expression. Rydia wondered if she’d ever really be able to understand him well enough to know just what it was that he was thinking about.

 

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(Edge)

 

The Tower was just as strange as he’d always thought. Nonsensical lights and techno-gagdetry that belonged to some other world. To his mind, which was used to the grit of the earth, the salt of sweat, and the tang of steel, this place was like stepping into some sort of dream, only to find out that it was another reality. His eyes darted from corner to corner, not fully knowing what to expect in this sterile environment. Where was Rubicante? Where were his parents? Were they even still alive?

                A lump formed in his throat and threatened to move upwards, but he forced it down. He willed his tears of anger away, sealed them off, as he’d been trained since childhood to do. If he hadn’t been gone…if he hadn’t been away from the castle when the attack began…He shook his head. In all actuality, he might have been dead himself. The seneschal had already told him that on numerous occasions, and assured him that it was a blessing from the gods that he had survived at all to return to and lead his people.

                _His_ people? The thought struck him uncomfortably in the gut. He genuinely wished his parents were still alive and could yet be saved, but he also had selfish reasons of course. He had no desire for the level of responsibility that came with the crown. He’d been lucky so far, able to be as carefree as he wished so long as his father sat securely on the throne and maintained peace between the clans. If he was dead…Edge’s freedom would be lost with him. The crown came with a price, with limitations, with chains.

                He’d always wanted to experience the world, to know what other people were out there across the wide oceans. He might never have that chance now. And there was something else he was looking for as well…answers to questions he wanted answered.

                As he walked through the corridors, he fleetingly wondered if he would find any of those answers here. It had been years, but the environment, the war…it brought back memories of rumors begun years ago. Of warnings. Of people gone missing.

                “See something?”

                At first, he wasn’t sure he’d heard anything at all, and continued staring off into the dark, frowning. At length, he ran a hand through his hair, a habit of his whenever he was frustrated, and looked to see the green-haired summoner staring at him. She was genuinely concerned, and the concept took him aback. But he didn’t want the pity or concern of strangers. He could handle this by himself; this was _his_ burden, after all. He smiled broadly, making it touch his eyes.

                “Nope,” he answered, and then figuring he’d play with her a bit, lowered his tone, hoping to catch her as off-guard as she’d caught him. “Why, were you worried about me?”

                Her eyes widened a little. She was outraged, offended, surprised, intrigued. Edge enjoyed watching each emotion flit across her face in a fraction of a second. At last she settled on a neutral expression, and narrowed her eyes. Ah, so she realized he was playing…

                “You’re going to get left behind if you keep stopping to stare at nothing.”

“Sorry,” he said, and raised his hands. He figured he’d make a truce of sorts with her for now. “Just a force of habit.”

“Getting left behind?”

                “Keeping an eye on the shadows.”

                He let her ponder that, and started walking. He could hear her trying to keep up with him, and it made him smile. It was a good thing she couldn’t see his face, or she might have threatened to level one of her spells at him. One of those powerful, hair-raising spells that he really thought someone her age had no business using…then again, he’d known someone like her once. Maybe that was why he found her so interesting. The Tower was dredging old memories to the surface of his thoughts, after all. It was only natural.

                Cecil—was that his name?—called them to a stop. Edge hadn’t decided if he liked him or not. Something about his eyes threw him off. Were they blue? Gray? Some hue of lavender? And why was his hair white? Sure, Edge’s own hair was nigh on silver, but white? He decided it must have resulted from a trauma of some kind, and left it at that. He had no intention, for that matter, of dwelling on why Rydia’s hair was green…that would probably take several years to finally get to the bottom of, but Cecil just…bothered him. Everyone looked up to him, respected him—took his word as the truth no matter what, and yet he looked far too young for the responsibility. Edge had never taken kindly to people who exuded authority over him, especially when he was used to exuding it over others. He was no longer in command, and it plagued him like an itch he couldn’t scratch. 

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Rydia hadn’t been paying full attention when Cecil called the halt, and she nearly barreled into Kain. She appeared extremely mortified at coming into contact with the armored man, and he couldn’t help but spare her an amused sideways glance. She frowned in response before giving Cecil her rapt attention. This only served to annoy Edge more.

“We’re going to rest here for a moment,” Cecil explained. It’s been hours since we entered the Tower, and I suspect it’s going to take a lot longer to reach the floors where the crystals are being held.”

“If the caves of Eblan are level with the crater, we can expect it to be at least another dozen floors,” Kain, the dragoon of few words, informed his friend.

Cecil nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on this side of the hallway. Edge, can you keep an eye on the other?”

Edge nodded his acknowledgement and shed the weight of his pack. He grabbed his canteen, and walked off a short way.

Who were these people? What were their motivations? How long had they been traveling as a group? He didn’t understand why a captain from Baron, no, _two_ captains from Baron, would be traveling with such vulnerable and beautiful women in their company. He’d thought them mad at first, thinking they served only as some form of…well, entertainment, but he’d been proven wrong almost immediately. Rosa was no damsel, and Rydia wasn’t a naïve wide-eyed girl.

Still, Rydia was very young and she didn’t seem well suited for this kind of journey. Neither of the women were anything like the kunoichi among Edge’s own people, the women who served as ninja among the clans. Neither Rosa nor Rydia were as tough as nails or armed to the teeth as kunoichi, but they had _powers_ of their own. Powers he had to respect.

He turned around and locked eyes with Rydia. He hadn’t been expecting it, hoping just to sneak a glance, and the unexpected contact sent a jolt up his spine. He mastered his expression as quickly as possible, not wanting her to read him too easily. He still didn’t trust these people completely, and he definitely didn’t want _her_ in his head. He still wasn’t sure what her abilities were, what _any_ of their abilities were, but what he’d already seen made him both a little nervous and intrigued. Whatever agenda they had, he had just become a part of it. He couldn’t help but wonder where it would lead.

 

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(Rydia)

 

 

“Let’s keep moving,” Cecil said, positioning himself once more at the front of the group.

They continued walking; focused on the task ahead.

In was some time before Kain finally broke the silence. “Your people have lived in the shadow of the tower for centuries. Do you know anything about it?” he asked, turning his attention to the prince.

Edge cocked an eyebrow. “It speaks.”

Kain scowled. “I had thought the ninjas of Eblan exercised more restraint,” he muttered. “If only their prince was of the same mold.”

Edge smirked. “And I think I just heard all your childhood dreams shattering. Must be terrible.”

Kain’s scowl deepened. “Do you make it a point to be this obnoxious or was that just an accident of birth?”

                Rydia rolled her eyes and gave Rosa a glance. Even Cecil seemed annoyed.

                “Both of you, cut it out,” Rosa scolded them.

                Kain and Edge both looked at Rosa, the latter bemused.

“You do seem awfully relaxed for someone on a suicide mission,” Cecil said dryly. “People have died trying to get where we now stand and you’re acting like their sacrifice means nothing,” he added, a disapproving look on his face.

Edge looked sidelong at Cecil, as if he’d been expecting this. “The men who volunteered for this mission knew what they were getting themselves into when we set out. They will not be forgotten.”

“How did you even set out on this mission in the first place—how did you know where to look?” Cecil asked.

Edge sighed. “These caverns have been here for ages. We had seen the supports spanning from the mountains to the tower and it only made sense that one of the cave passages led there. We were looking for weeks. It wasn’t until a day or two ago that we started encountering traps and knew we were headed in the right direction.”

“But why chase after Rubicante when your people needed you?”

“Is this a lecture on how to govern my kingdom? Believe me; I’ve gotten much better ones than yours.”

“But why this course of action?” Cecil persisted. “Even you have to admit, the risks outweigh the logic.”

“Why did the four of you set out to look for caverns you didn’t know where to find, in a kingdom you knew nothing about, for a path to the tower that you had no way of knowing existed?” the prince countered.

Cecil was stymied by Edge’s argument, and as if to ease the tension of the group as well as his own, his pace became more brisk.

The pause that followed seemed interminable to Rydia who had found the conversation quite interesting.

“Their bodies were never found,” Edge said finally, breaking the stalemate.

Cecil glanced at him. “Why would your seneschal tell you they had died, then?”

“To keep me from doing precisely this. The only reason he allowed me to pursue this course was because he thought it couldn’t be done, that I would give up, and we could lick our wounds, waiting for the storm of the war to blow over.”

“But that’s treason!” Rosa said, outraged. “To abandon the king and queen?”

“He did it from a good place,” Edge replied with a sigh. “We were struck so hard, all he could think to do was preserve who was left.”

“You really think they’re alive?” Cecil asked.

“What better way to dishonor our kingdom than to lay siege to it in a single day and make examples of its monarchs?” he asked tersely, balling his hands into fists.

Rydia’s thoughts flew to the Zoo and the strange Doctor Lugae they had encountered. It must have been weeks, now that she thought of it. Could it be--? No. She refused to think it.

“So you think Rubicante has them?” Kain asked.

“Someone has them, and whoever it is, is somewhere in this tower,” the prince fumed. “And no, just because I’ve lived next to it doesn’t mean I know anything about it other than knowing that it’s tall.”

They all fell silent after that, the prince brooding, and the others navigating the halls.

 

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They had fought their way up several flights of stairs and had reached a floor with a narrow hallway that seemed to follow an outer tower wall. When they’d reached what seemed to be the apex of the tower’s curve, a doorway appeared on their left with a metal grated catwalk leading into a room with a platform in the middle. The platform stood ten feet above the floor of the room itself, and all the walls were covered with switches and gizmos.

“Is that a chest?” Rosa asked, pointing down the catwalk to a platform.

Edge raised an eyebrow. “A single chest on a platform. That doesn’t scream ‘trap’ at _all._ ”

Cecil gave Edge a cautionary look. “A trap it might be, but it could also be a key.”

“Just how many keys have we needed thus far?” the ninja asked.

“We’re going,” Cecil said, frowning.

They crossed the catwalk to stand on the platform. Cecil busied himself with the lock on the chest, and Rydia stared out at the room surrounding the platform. It was lit with the consoles all around, but the whole room had an odd feel to it. Almost like some form of observation platform. Edge’s sarcastic remarks about it being a trap were very near in her thoughts. They had encountered traps before on the lower floors of the tower…

The chest at last snicked open, but before they could see what was inside, the lights of the room began flashing red and four large ogres materialized on the platform around them.

“Ah, look. A trap,” Edge muttered, drawing his blades.

Rydia rolled her eyes, but she too felt exasperated. This was not the first time the tower had fooled them.

The ogres wielded clubs, nothing but loin cloths covering their nether regions.

“Kain, use this,” Cecil said quickly, tossing a long handled axe to Kain. Rydia realized it to be what was in the chest.

Kain gripped it with all the sureness of an arms master, balancing shield and axe and dodging a blow from one of the clubs.

“Edge, hold the right flank, keep Rydia out of harm’s way,” Cecil ordered.

Edge gave the paladin an icy look, un-appreciative of being told what to do.

Cecil swung into action, his sword sliding out of its sheath. He met one of the clubs with steel, the ice enchantment upon the blade frosting the ogre’s weapon but not damaging it.

The blow took a lot out of Cecil, who had taken the brunt of the force through his arm, and he sidestepped, sword dipping toward the floor.

Rydia favored her whip rather than spells, afraid she might accidentally strike them all with her magic in the small space. She uncoiled the weapon at her side and lashed out at the ogre closest, snapping back so that the leather tongs would flay the arm holding the club. It did nothing but incite the ogre to charge. It roared, bearing sharp and crooked teeth, and lumbered toward her.

Within a heartbeat, Edge was in front of her, pelting the ogre’s face with the small knives he carried. The act would have been more impressive, had the darts not hit the monster’s hide and promptly bounced off again, but Edge adjusted his aim and struck the creature in the eye.  It bellowed in pain, an unbelievable sound that nearly made Rydia cover her ears. The ogre came to an ungainly stop, clutching at its face, and lowering its club.

In the moment of hesitation, Edge prepared his body to spring, but just then Kain descended from above. He landed with one heavy stroke, the axe he carried burying itself deep into the ogre’s spine. The crunch of bones and sinews was unmistakable, and the ogre fell dead at their feet. Rydia felt she might be ill, but there were still three others.

She turned, completely missing the furious glare Edge gave Kain for having stolen his kill.

She dodged a swing from another ogre’s club and jumped back, poising herself to strike. Cecil was suddenly there, heaving a two-handed blow on the monsters arm, slicing through tendons. The ogre’s ruined arm lost its grip, and Cecil then delivered a hard blow to the monster’s neck. It gurgled on its way to the floor.

Rydia was aware of Rosa casting a spell of protection on them, the green glow of a shield appearing before her eyes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to protect Edge from a lunge from one of the ogres. It bent low and put on such a burst of speed, that Edge, who was facing the other direction, didn’t see it coming. He was struck in the ribs and sent tumbling off the edge of the platform to the floor below. Kain and Cecil were quick to take the ogre down blow by blow. With one ogre remaining, Rydia stood back and allowed the knights to do their work, while Rosa rushed to the side of the platform and began the incantation for cura. Everything seemed to happen at once. The last ogre fell, and healed of his injuries, Edge had sprung back onto the platform to join them, an annoyed look on his face.

“A key, eh?” Edge snarked.

Cecil was wiping the blood from his blade, and spared the prince a glance. “At least we found something useful.”

Rydia watched the three men as they glared at each other, and decided to stay out of it. There was tension ebbing and flowing and she couldn’t figure out in which direction.

“The lights are still flashing,” Rosa pointed out, bringing them back to the present. “Isn’t it best we keep moving before something else arrives?”

“Rosa’s right,” Cecil agreed, stepping angrily over the body of one of the ogres. The rest of them followed.

Several more hours of tense silence followed.

They had just climbed another three floors and found a new blade for Edge to handle, when Cecil called another halt.

They stopped walking, exhausted. Kain stood guard on one end of the hall, and Cecil and Rosa stood near each other on the other side, speaking to each other quietly. That left Rydia and Edge beside each other in the middle.

Closing her eyes, Rydia began to recite the incantation for Blizzaga, memorizing each line. With the Archfiend of Fire waiting for them, she assumed that mastery of his opposite element would be a wise endeavor. She went line by line, practicing the pronunciation of each syllable. She sensed eyes on her, and opened her eyes to see Edge staring at her with a quizzical expression on his face.

“That’s how you practice your magic?” he asked.

“Isn’t it how you practice yours?” she asked glibly.

His gaze was intense. “My magic is not the same as yours.”

Rydia closed her eyes again, but cracked one open. “How do you control it, then?”

He grinned and looked away.

Rydia was tired of the game of cat and mouse they’d been playing. “If you’re going to be staying with us, you may as well start to be a little more open with us,” she mentioned, both eyes now open.

He turned his head towards her again. “We don’t learn magic like mages,” he explained. “Our magic comes from within and we learn to harness it through years of discipline.”

“From within?”

“We find our inner strength and turn it into magic*,” he said with a shrug.

Rydia gazed at him intently, and he returned her gaze.

“You’re not from Baron, are you?” Edge asked her under his breath.

“No. I told you, I’m from the Village Mist.”

“Do you really just follow every single one of his orders without pausing to think?” he asked, nodding in Cecil’s direction.

Rydia felt herself bristle at the inherent lack of trust in his words. “Cecil knows what he’s doing. Besides, we’ve been here before.”

“Here,” Edge clarified. “In this tower.”

“Yes?” Rydia asked, stupefied as to why this should surprise him.

“Why on earth did you decide to come back after the first time. Wasn’t once enough?”

“You have no idea the effect the theft of the crystals is having on the other nations, do you.”

“Are the oceans suddenly rising, the skies on fire, and all the rivers freezing?”

“How did you—“ Rydia asked a little haltingly. “You’re joking, aren’t you.”

He gave her a wry look.

“Oh.”

“Well? Are they?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” she answered, wringing her hands together.

He stared at her. “Hold on,” he frowned. “ _You’re_ not joking, are you?”

She raised both brows. “Joking?”

“You people are _really_ here to steal back the crystals?”

She kept her expression in place. “Yes?”

Edge shook his head in disbelief. “And you think _I’m_ mad.”

 

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The battered five-some continued walking and trudged up the wearying staircases. Even the lithe prince’s stride was flagging the higher they climbed, and Rydia began to wonder anew how long they would be trapped in their upward journey.

The tower corridors gave way to a series of catwalks and scaffolding and felt more like a storage area than a hallway. Cecil’s pace got faster, as if he sensed something ahead. Rydia felt her pulse quicken, her nerves afire. They hadn’t yet encountered the Fiend of Fire, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t waiting for them.

Cecil led them past a bend and onto metal grated floor that was completely suspended in the air. The space below was shrouded by shadow and it seemed ominously unstable to Rydia who suddenly felt exposed on all sides.

The walkway led to a long platform with a door at the end of it. There were stark shadows cast on the corners of the platform, but huddled in one of them were two unusually shaped figures.

They all slowed to a stop unconsciously, eyeing the platform with the wariness of those expecting to walk into another trap.

“Who’s there!” Cecil shouted from the walkway.

For a moment there was nothing, no movement, but then the shadows shifted, drawing themselves up to the height of two humans. They stepped into the light unsteadily.

To Rydia’s eyes, it seemed that something was very wrong about the two people who faced them. They had the vague appearance of a man and woman with raiments of clothing on their bodies that might have been very fine at one time, but there was some kind of mist that kept her from making out their features. She frowned, trying to pinpoint precisely what was wrong.

All of a sudden, Edge took several steps forward, calling out to the people on the platform in his native tongue.

Rydia detected some stirring on the part of the people he was addressing, and they walked toward the edge of the platform.

“Edge,” the man called back in a relieved but tired voice.

“Thank goodness you’re all right!” the woman said.

“And you!” Edge expressed, continuing to walk toward them.

Rydia felt every nerve and muscle in her body screaming at her to run, that something about this _wasn’t_ right, but all she could do was utter a half-hearted warning—“Edge,” she cautioned.

He glanced at her and waved her off. “It’s all right,” he assured her.

She wasn’t so sure, but Cecil was now following the prince as well, albeit, at a slower pace.

Rydia looked at the two people waiting for them at the end of the walkway, the man and woman. These must be Edge’s parents, she thought. But why couldn’t she make out their features? And why had they been left here of all places and not locked away in a cell if they were truly Rubicante’s prisoners?

The sound of their footsteps on the metal grating seemed to fill the space, an eerie calm surrounding all else.

The queen was holding out her arms, as if to welcome her son.

“Come, Edge,” she cooed.

“Yes, come with us,” the king agreed.

At these words, Edge’s confident steps flagged. He was still only halfway across the walkway.

“With you? Where?” he asked, guarded; slowly placing one foot in front of the other.

“To hell!” the queen snarled, noticing with no small amount of anger that her son had not rushed into her arms as she had hoped, but instead detected her duplicity. She discarded her guise, the mist that had clouded her features gone, and became a creature out of a nightmare. She lost the shape of a human entirely; arms replaced by long sinuous tentacles with barbed ends, and her body more that of a spindly hound with the legs from yet another creature. More tentacles emerged from her spine, and her mouth was lined with razor sharp fangs, all bared and menacing.

“A glamour!” Rydia cried out in dismay.

“Edge, look out!” Cecil shouted, rushing forward with his sword, as the queen lashed out with what used to be both of her arms. She was quick, but Edge was quicker, dodging her attack, as her long scythe-like tentacles swept through the air where he used to be standing. The king lost his glamour as well, large bat wings sprouting from his back, and the burly legs of some massive beast emerging from his chest in addition to his human arms. There was not much left of the two humans who had once been Edge’s parents, aside from their tortured faces which looked to have been grafted onto the bodies of these newly made monstrosities. The barbarity of it made tears come to Rydia’s eyes. It was as if they were trapped, prisoners of bodies that were not their own, eyes vacant and staring, the eyes of the haunted, or eyes that had just seen their last living sight and then been frozen that way in death.

It was enough to make anyone want to scream or wail, but these were the two people Edge had been looking for, the two people who meant that the Fiend of Fire was not far behind, and that the crystals were not far behind that.

                The king furled flames and barbed spikes at them. The queen swept her long tentacles through the air like whips, but for some reason, the king and queen refused to leave the safety of the platform. This was an advantage for the five of them, who stayed farther back on the walkway.

                The king’s aim was haphazard, and every once in a while, spikes showered the shields that Kain and Cecil carried. The rest of them dodged and avoided the flames that licked at the metal grating underfoot.

                “How are we going to get past them?” Kain asked, protecting his face with his shield as another shower of spikes came at them.

                “We have to press them,” Cecil answered.

                The two knights positioned themselves in the front of the group, shields raised, and began to advance along the walkway.

                Even tucked behind Cecil, Rydia noticed that the attacks intensified the closer to the platform they crept. The grating beneath their feet was hot and smelled like it was melting.

“You wish for death?” the king bellowed. “Then allow me to speed you on your way!”

The king attacked with more fire, flames splashing off of Cecil’s shield like a living thing. Rydia felt the heat of it blast her face.

“What’s happened to you?” Edge shouted, dodging and rolling along the walkway as the tentacles scythed overhead. “Mother! Father! It’s me! Your son!”

                It was one of those moments where everything inexplicably halted—time suspended. The attacks suddenly ceased, and in fact, there was uncertainness in the movements of the king and queen. An eerie silence blanketed the walkway. The entire party lowered their weapons slowly, anticipating, but curious. Something had changed in the king and queen at Edge’s words. Rydia noticed that their eyes had changed, they were lucid again, human.

The king’s eyes sought Edge’s, beseeching. “Edge,” he rumbled in a pained voice. “Hear me while I can speak. We are no longer human. What we are…has no right to live.”

“Forgive us, Edge,” the queen begged.

                But Edge said nothing, and with his back to her, Rydia had a hard time figuring out what emotion was currently at war within him.

The king’s face suddenly contorted with pain, as if he were fighting to stay coherent. “We must depart now…before the madness takes us again. Serve Eblan well, my son.”

“No!” Edge suddenly snarled, lunging forward. “Don’t go!” But the king had already drawn a weapon they hadn’t seen at his side, and brought it to his neck where the quick and remorseless blow was delivered, severing the crucial artery. He fell to the floor in a senseless heap, eyes staring, blood pouring freely from the wound.

The quickness of it, the lack of warning, gave Rydia’s heart a jolt. Had he really just--

“Farewell, Edge,” the queen said sorrowfully, interrupting Rydia’s thoughts, the strange tentacles arranging themselves around her like a menacing halo.

“Mother! Wait! Don’t!” Edge shouted, reading in her actions what she was about to do before she did it.

                Before he could so much as take a step, each of her barbed tentacles dove toward her chest at lightning speed. The crunch of bone followed and blood blossomed from her chest. She too fell to the ground, joining her husband, her face easing from horror to a calm sort of resignation.

                Edge ran forward, leaving the four of them behind. He reached the bodies of his parents and knelt beside them.

By the time the rest of them ran to the platform, Edge had already closed both of their eyes.

“Such cruelty,” Rosa choked out. “It’s inhuman.”

Edge said nothing, but suddenly let out a cry so raw that Rydia had to close her eyes. It was a cry that contained all of his grief, all of his anger, and it resonated all the way to the tips of her toes. She couldn’t imagine the pain and the outrage. If it had been her own mother…

                There was barely time to process any of what had just happened when a warm glow spread from the opposite side of the platform. The fiend of fire himself, Rubicante, was standing with his arms crossed, observing the scene before him with a clinical sort of detachment.

                “I see you’ve met the gate keepers,” he said smoothly. “Shame, really. I had such high hopes for them.”

“Rubicante!” Edge snarled, standing up. “For this…for this you will pay!”

Rubicante’s expression remained infuriatingly mild. “It was Lugae who made chimerae of your parents. I shared no hand in his perversities. They shame me, as they grieve you,” he purred, nodding in the direction of the two bodies on the floor.

“Don’t speak of shame!” Edge exploded.

“I respect men like you. Men with…courage,” he continued, assessing the prince with narrowed

eyes. “But you are a slave to your emotions, and so will never know true strength. Such is the curse of Men.”

“You think our rage a weakness?” Edge snapped. “Then let me show you how wrong you are!”

Rydia felt it before she saw it, the maelstrom that surrounded the prince after he’d issued his challenge. She felt a stirring in her spirit and magic surrounding the prince. There was the crackle of electricity and a swirling cloud of vapor that surrounded Edge as he stood with arms at his sides, fists clenched. Finally, the tension in the air was released and the cloud of water and electricity fell to the floor. The look in Edge’s eye was furious.

Rubicante smiled, showing fangs. “You are an interesting one indeed. Such powers, unleashed by anger alone! But they will not avail you. The frozen winds of hell’s ninth circle could not penetrate this cloak of flame I wear. Come, I will heal your wounds, and give an honorable burial for the ones you knew as your parents,” he said, raising his arms. Flames licked at his finger tips and shot out in liquid torrents. Rydia’s heart leapt, but then she realized that the flames weren’t meant for them, but for the bodies on the floor. The fallen monstrosities were burnt to piles of ashes. She then felt the glow of white magic at work, healing her hurts, boosting her energy. “Face me at full strength!” Rubicante howled in delight.

                Rydia had never before fought an Archfiend, and this was Rubicante, the strongest of the four. Rubicante stood between them and the door at the end of the platform. His arms were still crossed beneath his red cloak and he didn’t move.

                There was a moment of hesitation in which no one moved. And then everyone moved at once. Edge began throwing darts, and Kain sprang into the air with axe in hand. Rydia decided to summon an ally she hoped would make Rubicante choke on his words. She began the summoning for Shiva, lost to all else around her. She was dimly aware of magic being cast upon her, Protect and then Shell, and then _pain!_ She dared not lose her concentration, and continued on. She was so focused, she didn’t hear Cecil shouting at her to stop.

                When she at last opened her eyes and completed the incantation, the frost of Shiva filling the air, she saw Cecil’s stricken expression.

                “He’s immune to ice!” Cecil shouted.

                But it was too late. Shiva had already raised her arm and sent a shower of angry ice down on the Archfiend. They didn’t penetrate his cloak, but were absorbed by it, melting on contact. Shiva’s expression was annoyed, and she gave Rydia an apologetic look before retreating to the Feymarch.

                “Then what do we do?” Rydia demanded.

                Cecil was too busy swapping a weapon with Kain, taking the dragoon’s second axe, to heed Rydia’s words.

                Rydia watched Rubicante, noticing a quick swish at the opening of his cloak. She furrowed her brow, wondering what the Fiend was up to, and then felt a super heating of the air and the stinging of claws in her arm, slashing at her arm guards. It was so quick it took her a moment to register the pain.

                He had sliced through leather and into skin, leaving angry red marks on her arm that were blistered with burns. Rydia gasped in pain.

                Rosa was quickly at work, healing Rydia’s arm and closing the wound.

                Kain was once again in the air, descending with axe in hand. Rubicante dodged some of the blow, but Kain’s axe sliced through the Fiend’s cloak, shredding a ribbon of it off.

                Cecil was next, delivering a blow with his own axe, which Rubicante met with his arm. The attack only served to break the Fiend’s skin before Rubicante threw Cecil backwards.

                Rubicante raised one finger into the air and Rydia sensed him gather his magic to cast a spell.

                Fire rained down on all of them, pelting against the Shell spell Rosa had cast on them. The Fira spell frizzed Rydia’s hair and turned her skin a medium shade of red, but Rosa was on top of that as well in quick fashion, healing the five of them. Rydia reveled in the woman’s ability to cast so quickly and unceasingly.

                And then Rubicante opened his cloak completely, baring his long legs with corded muscles. Rydia felt him gathering his magic, a great surge of power. She felt her heart rise into her throat. This was the attack they had felt in the caverns that had knocked them flat. She stood frozen, unable to think of what to do, and then saw Edge sprint forward. He ran straight for the Fiend, one sword bared.

                Rubicante bent his knees in preparation for Edge’s attack and with his hand, redirected the prince’s blade. But then his face registered surprise, when Edge swiveled to the side and reached inside his cloak, grabbing for something at the Fiend’s waist.

                Angered, Rubicante whirled his cloak shut again, glaring at the prince, while Edge quickly retreated.

                Rydia gave Edge a curious look. “What did you do?”

                Edge’s expression was fierce and satisfied. “Made him uncomfortable.”

                Whatever Edge had done, Rydia felt the Fiend’s magic crumble. With the cloak closed, he couldn’t attack them with his most powerful magic.

                While Kain and Cecil continued to chip away at the Fiend’s defenses, she came up with a new strategy. If ice didn’t harm Rubicante when his cloak was closed, she would have to find another way to wound him.

                She began the incantation for Bio, releasing the virus on the Fiend. It splashed upon his cloak and seeped through it. The Fiend displayed a look of disgust and retaliated with more fire. Despite the cost, Rydia felt satisfied, seeing that the Fiend was now a slight tint of green.

                They settled into a rhythm of attacking, retaliating, and defending, but Rydia knew so long as Rosa’s magic held out, they stood a good chance of wearing down the Fiend. Bio had done its work, and the Fiend labored with each attack.

                He pulled open his cloak a third time, but Rydia had pre-empted him. She had begun the incantation for Blizzaga, leaving the final word for the moment he opened his cloak. The onslaught of ice caught the Fiend by surprise, freezing his skin and frosting his cloak and hair. He fell to his knees, hand still poised to strike them.

                Cecil switched axe for Icebrand and rushed forward, dealing the Fiend a blow from shoulder to lower ribs. A strange ichor flowed from Rubicante’s wounds and he gasped, baring teeth at them.

                “Most interesting,” he rasped. “You combine your strengths to overcome foes stronger than yourselves. You are fine warriors indeed. Lord Golbez himself will find you no easy opposition,” he said with a bark of a laugh and then a cough. “I pray the day comes that we can fight each other again.”

                The archfiend then fell his energy spent, and was still.

                The five of them all exhaled a sigh of relief.

                “It is finished, then,” Cecil concluded.

                Edge had turned to look at the two piles of ash that rested behind them. “Mother, Father, may you rest in peace,” he murmured.

                Rydia was relieved the Fiend had at least destroyed the horrible bodies that had held Edge’s parents captive. Their spirits could now be fully released. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer that wherever they were, they were truly at peace.

                Sounds from the walkway made her open her eyes. A group of people were approaching them, and as they drew nearer, she discovered who it was. The Seneschal of Edge’s kingdom was trotting toward them, fully armored, and there were four other ninjas with him as well.

                “Your Young Highness!” the older man shouted, clearly relieved.

                Edge’s expression was quizzical. “Seneschal?”

                “We’ve come to aid you in your fight! Where is that devil Rubicante? Lead us to him, we will not let you fight alone!”

                Edge’s expression softened, he seemed honestly touched by the support of his men. “It’s already done,” he explained, pointing to the body of the Archfiend on the floor.

                The seneschal looked a tad disappointed by this development, but nodded. “I should have expected no less from you.”

                “I wasn’t alone,” Edge admitted. “I had the aid of these warriors as well,” he said, gesturing to Rydia and the others.

                The seneschal looked at each of them, smiling. “It seems we owe you our thanks for fighting alongside our prince and keeping him safe.”

                Cecil bowed.

                Edge spoke to the man then, at length. They spoke the language of Eblan and spoke quickly. Rydia could tell by their expressions that what they were speaking about was the grave news of the passing of the king and queen. The Seneschal’s face became more grave with every word and he spoke a few curt things to the prince which Edge brushed off with a gesture. Whatever the seneschal wanted, it was clear that Edge would have none of it. When the conversation with his seneschal had come to an end, Edge turned back to Cecil.

                “So just who _is_ this Golbez that Rubicante spoke of?” he asked.

                “He is a man gathering the crystals in hopes of opening a way to the moon. He is also Rubicante’s master,” Kain answered.

                “Rubicante’s master?” Edge asked. “So there’s another head to this monster that we have to cut off? Wait—did you just say the moon? The one in the night sky?”

                Cecil intervened. “A power is said to sleep there—one great enough to possibly destroy the world.”

                “And we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Rydia said with conviction.

                Edge eyed each of them in turn. “Everything that’s been done has been at this Golbez’s command, then. It must not go unpunished!”

                The Seneschal was looking a bit green. “But, Your Young Highness, your people need you now! Eblan must be rebuilt!”

                Edge turned to him with a flash of fierceness in his eyes. “This isn’t just about Eblan!” he snapped. “It’s about the whole world. If it was Golbez who ordered the attacks against our people, I’m not going to stand by and let him get away with worse.”

                The two men eyed each other for a long moment. “It seems there’s no changing your mind,” the seneschal acquiesced. “Do be careful.”

                “Of course.”

                “Very well. We will do our best to protect Eblan in your absence,” he said, then turning to Cecil, added, “Please continue to take care of our young prince.”

                Cecil nodded and this seemed to calm the Seneschal.

                The four ninjas on the walkway all bowed. “May shadow hide you, Your Highness!”

                “And you!” Edge returned.

                The Seneschal and the four ninjas retreated across the walkway. When they were out of sight, Edge turned to Cecil. “Right, let’s go find this bastard Golbez!” he said eagerly.

                Rydia sighed, feeling that his demeanor was all wrong given the circumstances. “We came here for the crystals, not to face Golbez,” she explained, sensing that the prince was only itching to get into another fight.

                This revelation seemed to deflate the prince, but not by much. “I knew that,” he replied, striding toward the door at the end of the platform. “Follow me, then!”

                They all followed him past Rubicante’s body and to the door. Rydia felt her nerves gather once more. Could this really be the storehouse for the crystals? Could their quest finally be over?

                The door slid open and the light within the adjacent room was dazzling. Seven crystals glistened on daises, emitting variable colors and lights, shining with inner power.

                Rosa gasped. “We’ve done it!”

Even Cecil looked wholly relieved. They all took a step into the room, gazing at the beauty of the crystals and overcome by their own success.

They were so distracted; they hadn’t realized the floor had vanished beneath their feet before they’d sunk half through it.

“What _is_ it with this tower and traps!” Edge shouted while they plummeted to unknown depths.

Rydia didn’t know, but she felt her spirits fall, even as the drop tore a scream from her lips.


	17. Chapter 17

 

Their fall continued unchecked from the crystal room to an unknown depth below. Rydia’s scream ended in a panicky note as she had long run out of breath on the downward plunge.

In between frantic pulls for air and the wind whistling in her ears, Rydia heard Rosa chanting. Rydia couldn’t tell if the woman was praying for their souls or casting a spell, but she applauded the woman’s absurd amount of focus. When it seemed nothing was going to save them, she felt something tug at her back, like someone pulling hard at her robes—abrupt and uncomfortable. She sensed her fall begin to slow down, the lights of various floors becoming more even and less rushed in the blur of her vision. She could only imagine that Rosa had cast Float on them—it was the only explanation—but Float had never been meant to deal with _this._  

It slowed them down, but they still hit solid floor at a greater speed than was comfortable.

“Hell’s teeth!” Kain bellowed, a graceless heap of limbs and armor sprawled out on the floor.

Cecil fared little better, his legs buckling beneath him and his armor clunking heavily onto the tile, cracking the floor and shorting out the lights that ran within it.

Edge stood with a pained expression on his face. “I really hate this place,” he muttered, rubbing his hands up and down his shins.

Rydia agreed with every fiber of her being, but she couldn’t make her mouth form words and merely wobbled in place, feeling like the contents of her head had been turned to jelly.

It took them a few minutes to collect their bearings, but once Cecil had mastered his balance, he was looking up to where they’d fallen from. “How is it,” he said angrily, “that we keep getting so close to what we’ve been trying to reach, only to have it snatched away from us?”

Edge gave him a look with both eyebrows idly raised. “Do you really want an answer to that question?”

Rosa sighed, and in it, an implicit warning. “Not now,” she said to Edge.

Edge simply shrugged and walked away while Rydia took a moment to gaze upwards as well.

“I can’t even see where we fell from,” she complained with a disappointed sigh.

The frustration on Cecil’s face matched the tone of his words. “There’s no getting back up there,” he agreed.

“There has to be a staircase, and we _did_ see Rubicante use a teleportation device so we know such things exist,” Rosa insisted, trying to be helpful. “There _has_ to be a way to get back up there.”

“I hate to be the voice of reason here, but it’s time to move on to the next order of business,” Edge interrupted her from across the room.

They all turned to look at him with varying degrees of annoyance.

“There’s no getting up there,” he explained, contrary to their hopes. “If there was, you would have succeeded the first time you climbed this damn tower. The only way to get back up there is to return to Eblan however you got there in the first place and start all over again,” he bluntly pointed out. “That in mind, there’s no time. You need to change your strategy and we need to find a way out of this tower.”

“You’re telling us to give up?” Cecil asked.

“I’m telling you to find another solution,” Edge replied. “It sounds like you’ve been wandering around in circles. Why not just cut off the monster’s head? Why not go after Golbez directly and not the crystals?” he asked.

They all stared at him. Rydia was slowly coming to understand what he was going on about. They’d been putting so much of their energy into retrieving the crystals and so little into pursuing Golbez himself, that until now she hadn’t given it a thought.

“Even _if_ you’d stolen back the crystals, what then?” Edge continued. “Return them to where they belong only to have them stolen again? Constantly live on the run until Golbez found whoever was holding them?” Edge asked, tapping his temple with a finger. “Think, people.”

“What, then?” Kain asked, acerbity on his tongue. “What do you suggest we do since you seem to have all the answers?”

“Get the hell out of this place,” Edge answered flatly. “The rest is up to you,” he said, looking directly at Cecil.

“Me?” Cecil asked, a little wryly. “And here I thought it was you who wanted to be in command.”

Edge shook his head and smiled. “Some leader _you_ are if you let an outsider usurp your command in only a few short hours,” he laughed, but his expression was serious. “It’s you they answer to, not me. Besides, you seem to have some knowledge of the man you’re after. I’m just here to streamline the process.”

“You’ll follow my lead?” Cecil inquired, skeptical.

“Do I have a choice?” Edge asked lightly.

Cecil studied the prince anew and narrowed his eyes. “No, you really don’t.”

“It’s settled then,” Edge answered, gesturing for Cecil to step forward. “Lead the way.”

Rydia raised one delicate brow, once again not comprehending. Ever since Edge had joined their group there had been a back and forth of power, with Edge always instigating the battle of wills. He’d fought Cecil the entire way, questioned his judgments, but now he was deferring to Cecil’s leadership. What was he playing at?

With Cecil re-established as the leader of the group, Rydia suddenly felt Edge’s gaze on her and she could only give him a quizzical, disapproving look. There was something in his glance, a little glint of mischief in his gray-blue eyes that she hoped wasn’t meant especially for her. Before she had a chance to wonder, he’d turned on his heel and walked away.

“Maddening,” Rosa muttered close to her ear. “I know he’s a prince, but who does he really think he is?”

Rydia glanced at the white mage, whose usually soft features were angled in concentration. “Rosa?”

“I’m just,” Rosa began, and then sighed. “I’m tired of the constant bickering, the questions. We had a clear mission, a goal, and he keeps finding faults in it.”

Rydia stared ahead where Edge and Cecil were keeping the lead. “But what he’s saying makes sense, doesn’t it? What would we have done once we had the crystals?”

Rosa emitted what sounded like a groan, and Rydia took it to mean the other woman had no acceptable answer to that question. Instead, “I’m just worried that without a clear purpose, Cecil might be too discouraged to continue,” Rosa said.

“He’s gotten us this far,” Rydia answered confidently, more confidently than she felt.

Rosa’s mouth quirked into a wicked grin. “How far is here?” she asked.

Rydia frowned. “At least it’s somewhere,” she said quietly.

“It means we’re lost again,” Rosa said knowingly and lengthened her stride.

 

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

Being lost had never been a feeling that Rydia enjoyed, even as a little girl. She remembered vividly, a time when she’d left Mist entirely on her own. Despite her mother’s warnings, there was a pool in the woods that the other children always spoke about. A pool, they said, that could tell you your future if you looked into it. It was a rumor, of course, but Rydia had been too young to know the difference and the excitement of it led her away from the comforts and familiarity of home into the unknown world beyond the village walls. What she found wasn’t a pool, but a snarl of undergrowth and tall grasses, and she’d been lost for hours before her mother had found her—cold, exhausted, and frightened. She felt that way again here in this tower. They were in uncharted territory, in corridors that spanned miles. The tower had not yielded any of its secrets and there had been no staircases leading up, only several flights leading down. It felt that each step downward only escalated their defeat.

But something peculiar had happened to the five of them as the minutes stretched into hours. They were not four and one fighting separately, they were five altogether. When they had seamlessly acclimated to each other, Rydia wasn’t sure, but in light of all the other uncertainties that surrounded them, this small bit of unity lifted her spirits.

She also felt relieved, that with everyone working so well in tandem, she had less and less cause to use her magic. Even the bickering ceased after a while.

They might be lost, but they were efficient. Edge had taken a position at the front of the group, a scout of sorts.  He guided them past obstacles and fiends and overall kept the pace brisk.

“Tell me again,” Edge said after a long pause, “everything you know about Golbez.”

Cecil explained what they had seen and heard about the dark knight during their travels. Edge listened with occasional nods, asking a few pointed questions during the telling. Rydia also listened intently as much of the information Cecil was explaining was new to her ears.

“He refused to kill you?” Rydia was surprised to hear herself ask when Cecil recounted the incident in the Tower of Zot.

Cecil glanced to where she stood by his shoulder, startled to see her there. “He hesitated,” Cecil answered with a distant look, his thoughts somewhere far away.

Rydia looked at Edge and for once the ninja’s confusion mirrored her own.

“Is it possible the two of you knew each other in the past?” Edge asked.

Cecil shook his head. “No, I’d never met him before he took over my former command.”

“Where in the world did he come from—if not from Baron?” Edge wondered aloud.

“No one knows for certain,” Kain answered from the back of the group. “But he is well-trained, well-placed, and the men, women, and fiends under his control are in many places.”

Edge looked back at Kain, his brow furrowed with suspicion.

“Excellent,” Edge muttered, turning his attention to the hallway in front of them. “I like a good challenge.”

 

They walked for a while longer until the ceilings became higher and the rooms larger.

“This is starting to look a little familiar,” Rosa mentioned, gazing up at the scaffolded ceiling.

Edge suddenly sprinted ahead.

“Edge?” Cecil called out, jogging to keep up. “What do you see?”

But Edge was too focused on something else to attend. Finally he stopped in front of a large set of metal doors and began to pull at them until they budged. Cecil comprehended the situation and began pulling on the opposite door until there was a gap of several feet on either side, Kain joining them an instant later.

Rydia and Rosa were the last to reach the doors, but once they did, Rydia’s eyes widened with surprise when she saw what was on the other side.

An airship. Un-manned, undefended, and sitting docked in a large bay.

Edge squeezed through the opening in the doors and began striding toward the ship, the others following at a safe distance.

“An enemy airship?” Cecil asked, staring at the airship like it was a miracle he could scarce believe.

“Let’s take it,” Edge announced, climbing up the gangplank with his gray cloak billowing behind him. They followed him up in a daze. Never had Rydia expected them to get out of the tower so easily.

Once they were standing aboard the ship’s deck, the shock wore off enough for sense to return to Rydia’s mind. “Steal an enemy airship?” she protested, her eyes finding Edge’s. “What if it’s another trap?”

“I stole this elixir from Rubicante, does that mean it’s going to be any less useful?” He asked, walking toward her and waving a glass vial in the air in front of her face.

 _“That’s_ what you were doing?” She demanded, finally learning the answer to a question that had been in the back of her mind for hours.

“What, did you think I’d go rummaging around in his trousers for no reason? No, don’t answer that,” he suddenly said, giving Kain a glare that all but dared the other man to try.

Cecil actually cracked a smile, the first in hours, and shook his head.

“Besides,” Edge carried on. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to sabotage their own ship. As I understand it, there aren’t a lot of these in the world.”

“That’s true enough,” Kain muttered in agreement.

Edge walked farther onto the ship’s deck. “I _like_ this ship!” he announced, hands planted on hips as if he’d just conquered a new land.

“Do you know how to pilot anything like this?” Cecil asked doubtfully, looking eager to take the controls himself.

                The look Edge gave him was unimpressed at best. “You Baronians have all the fun and leave so little joy for the rest of us. We’re always getting your second-hand junk,” he said bitterly, looking around at the ship’s deck. “But _this_ is brilliant.”

                “It might be brilliant,” Cecil intoned, “But there is a certain amount of training involved with operating one of these ships.”

 “How hard can it be?” Edge asked as he strode over to the controls and started flipping switches until the engine sputtered to life. “What is it you people name your ships after?” Edge asked over his shoulder, still fiddling with the controls. “Birds? How about we call this one the Falcon—that sounds heroic enough.”

Rydia scoffed and rolled her eyes, and Edge turned to wink at her. “Somehow I knew you’d agree,” he said with a smirk beneath his mask.

Disgusted, Rydia marched to the opposite side of the ship; arms folded, and hoped they didn’t end the day as a blazing pile of wreckage. Cecil and Kain were arguing with Edge at the helm, but she was too tired to care anymore about the finer points of aviation. She just wanted to be free of this tower and hoped that _someone_ got the ship into the air.

Finally, Edge pushed another knob on the console that opened the bay doors in the outer tower wall. On the other side of the doors was the sheer rock that made up the core of the earth somewhere between the over and underworlds. This _did_ get her attention.

The ship moved forward unsteadily, Cecil and Kain both eyeing the sides of the bay doors as Edge navigated the ship through. Once they were clear of the tower, the nose of the ship angled downward and they began to descend. Slowly.

Cecil strode closer to the ship’s wheel where Edge was standing, brows crawling closer together with concern.

“If you would just let me—” Cecil tried saying, but Edge forestalled him with a gesture.

“If I want your help I’ll ask for it,” Edge replied.

Cecil’s frown deepened.

Rydia watched the whole exchange with amusement and heard Rosa stifling a laugh close by.

“I’ve never seen Cecil so flustered to not be in command of an airship,” Rosa giggled against her hand, trying to hide her face.

Rydia smiled as well, seeing Rosa’s mood lighten.

The airship continued to descend at a slow pace, Cecil staying close by the helm while Edge learned the controls for himself. It was like watching a concerned parent reluctant to give up the wheel.

When the ship finally leveled out, Rydia saw the base of the tower to be exactly as she remembered it. The field of fiend corpses and the line of dwarf tanks with the encampment behind it.

“The dwarves are still holding ground!” Rosa exclaimed, leaning over the railing.

“Dwarves?” Edge asked, perplexed.

Rydia realized Cecil’s story of their account had ended in the Tower of Zot, and they hadn’t had a chance to brief the prince yet about the existence of the dwarves.

Edge stepped away from the ship’s wheel, hands in the air. “Ship’s all yours,” he announced with a laugh. “No one said anything about Dwarves and I have absolutely no idea where we’re going.”

Cecil took the wheel and turned the ship, looking relieved to be in control again, and guided them south.

“Rosa, you might want to wave something white in the air so the dwarves know not to fire upon us,” Cecil called to her from the other side of the ship*.

Rosa nodded in understanding and began to un-fasten her cloak. In Rydia’s eyes, Rosa’s cloak had always been white and pristine, but now she saw it was stained with dirt, grime, grass, blood and flame. How interesting, she thought—the differences between her perceptions and reality. Rosa flung the cloak over the side of the airship, waving it vigorously for the courtesy of the dwarves down below. Rydia watched, waiting to see what the dwarves would do, and held her breath.

No shots were fired and the airship continued to sail the warm air above the encampment.

“Thank goodness,” Rydia said, relieved, as Rosa pulled her cloak back over the railing to re-fasten it at her shoulders.

Their journey over the magma plains and plateaus continued without incident. No one pursued them from the tower and no interference came from the ground. After several hours, they finally saw the Dwarf Stronghold and Cecil landed the ship as close as he possibly could before the five of them disembarked.

As they walked to the castle’s gates, Rydia noticed Edge’s expression become more and more quizzical.

The guards at the gate recognized them and hurriedly opened the gates to grant them entry. As they walked underneath the portcullis, Rydia realized she had forgotten how squat and burly the dwarves were and felt like a giant walking beside them. More guards came to collect them once they were past the gate, and these escorted them to the throne room where King Giott would be waiting for them.

They walked in silence, the feeling of dread building. They had intended to come back with good news, and what they’d returned with was news of failure. Rydia looked ahead at Cecil and saw his brow creased with concern, no doubt considering how he was going to explain himself to the king. To her left, she saw that Edge was no longer wearing his mask and appeared uneasy, completely bewildered by the surroundings and the dwarves carrying axes on either side of them.

Their escorts bade them pause while they opened the throne room doors, and with bows, they were ushered in to speak with the king. This meeting was far different from the last time Rydia had been here, racing from the ramparts to save Cecil and the others. She’d been robbed of this experience the first time, and was a little in awe of the pomp and circumstance of this visit. King Giott stood from his throne when they entered, wearing war armor that glittered in the torchlight. All five of them bowed, and when they lifted their heads, the king was searching each of their faces.

“I’ve been waiting for weeks, after the news of your flight from the tower reached my ears. What has become of the crystals?” the king asked, his bushy brows knitted together.

“Your majesty, it is with great regret that I tell you the mission was unsuccessful. Golbez had moved the crystals beyond our reach by the time we arrived,” Cecil explained.

The king nodded. “My men informed me you were pursued on your way out of the tower. I had hoped it was because you had retrieved the crystals, but now I know it was not.”

“We were unable to retrieve the crystals, but we were able to dismantle a weapon within the tower, and its destruction alerted Golbez’s soldiers of our presence. Yang bought us the time we needed to escape.”

The king’s expression turned gloomy. “This is hard news to hear. I see Sir Yang is not with you and I am sorry for your loss. He seemed a good man.”

Rydia felt the tears gather in her eyes at the mention of Yang but she fought them off.

“We did attempt another foray from the top of the tower but that was no less successful aside from removing one of Golbez’s generals as a threat,” Cecil elaborated.

“We are back to where we started, then. The crystals are beyond us aside from one,” the king mused.

“We plan to go after Golbez directly, no more games,” Cecil informed the king.

“I understand,” the king answered, gazing off at something no one but he could see. “Presently, Golbez has been hard at work attempting to acquire the last crystal by forcing open the Sealed Cave. It is only a matter of time before he succeeds. If you wish to confront him, that would be the place to find him. Though, I was hoping you might go and remove the Crystal before he does.”

“But if we enter the cave, what’s to stop Golbez from doing the same? We may as well give him the Crystal,” Kain objected.

“Either he obtains it on his own, or you intervene and we stall his plans for a while. There’s not much we can do at this point other than slow him down,” the king replied and then gestured to someone standing in the room behind them. Rydia turned and saw a little girl with dark skin and reddish hair start walking forward.

“Luca, bring me your necklace,” the king instructed.

The little girl trotted up to the king and snaked a long chain from around her neck, handing it to Giott.

The king held a key in his hand for them to see. “This necklace, you see, is the key to the Sealed Cave. Golbez has been trying to find this object throughout the Underworld for weeks now with no success. With good reason, for it has been well hidden in plain sight. No one can pass through the entryway of the cave without it. Please take it and do what you can to ensure the safety of the final crystal.”

Cecil stepped forward to retrieve the key and bowed. “We will try.”

“By the way, it should interest you that the man named Cid was found by some of my men near the entrance to your world. He’s been brought to our infirmary to rest.”

Rosa looked sharply at Cecil. “It can’t be—” she breathed.

The look he gave her in return was one of disbelief and relief. “Could it?” he asked.

Remembering where they were, Cecil hastily turned back to the king. “Your majesty, with your permission, we’d like to meet with our companion.”

“Of course. Please take your time. We can speak more of plans later.”

 

 

They took their leave of the king and were allowed to find their way to the infirmary. The room had the smell of sickness and herbs, and it didn’t take long to find who they were looking for among the beds of dwarves being tended for a variety of wounds and maladies.  Two dwarf nurses in simple gray robes were fussing over him and he was raising quite the ruckus.

“What, is it time for dinner again already?” his surly voice boomed across the room. “I tell you, the cuisine down here could use some work. If I have to eat one more—”

“Cid!” Cecil blurted out, rushing forward to join his friend at his bedside and leaving two bewildered nurses to back away believing that the troublesome man was now someone else’s problem.

“You’re alive!” Rosa cried, hand over her mouth from shock.

Kain stood at the foot of the bed and gave the engineer a sly grin, shaking his head. “Put on a real show, didn’t you?”

Cid grinned back at the dragoon and chuckled.

Edge, who had been waiting for all of two minutes for _someone_ to explain what was going on, nodded to Cecil. “Who’s this old codger?” he asked.

Cid swiveled so fast upon the bed that Rydia jumped back a little. “ _Codger?”_ Cid demanded. “Did that unmannered lout just call me an old _codger?”_

Edge made a face. “You’re the unmannered one!” he shot back.

Cid whirled toward Cecil. “Who is he?” he asked with an accusing bandaged finger still pointed in Edge’s direction. “Who is this snot-nosed little brat?”

Cecil, at a loss, looked back at Edge.

“I’m Prince Edge of Eblan,” Edge supplied with a half-smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, old man.”

Kain sighed, eyeing the prince. “He has a foul tongue, but the matter of his royalty seems true enough,” he answered darkly.

“Let’s not forget my dashing looks and mystifying skills,” Edge reminded the dragoon with a now-devilish smile.

Rydia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Edge please!” she scolded him, gesturing toward Cid on the bed. “This man is injured!”

Edge gave her an amused glare but bit his tongue and Cid pointed at them triumphantly.

“Ha!” he bellowed. “So Rydia’s got you reined in with that pretty little face of hers, eh?”

Edge screwed his handsome features into a scowl, but didn’t answer.

Satisfied, Cid returned his attention to Cecil. “Now that’s settled, what’s become of Golbez? Did my plan to block their passage to the Overworld work? Were you able to reach Eblan and get the crystals?” he asked in a rush, and then turned to Edge curiously. “Eblan, you said? Oh, so you _were_ able to get there,” he mused, looking at Cecil again. “That makes more sense, then.”

                Waiting for a turn to speak, Cecil jumped into the midst of Cid’s revelations. “We weren’t able to retrieve the crystals, Cid. But your plan worked brilliantly. No one followed us.”

                “But you were able to get back into the tower, yes? And still nothing?”

                Cecil shook his head, looking at Rosa. “We defeated the last of the Archfiends, but Golbez still holds all of the crystals save one.”

                “And the Enterprise is still above ground, of no use to us,” Rosa added.

                “Besides that, the enemy ship we stole cannot cross the magma. It looks to be an earlier design than the rest of the Red Wings,” Kain mentioned.

                Cid grinned widely and leaned back against his pillows, closing his eyes. “Doesn’t sound like you can do much at all, does it? Guess it’s up to me again! I swear, you kids would never get anything done without me,” he announced, throwing his feet over the side of the bed and pushing himself up.

                Rosa had a look of outrage and disbelief on her face. “Cid! What are you doing?” she exclaimed.

                The dwarf nurses, seeing the commotion sped back to Cid’s bedside. “Sir, you must stay in bed—at least until you’ve healed!” they fussed.

                Cid shook them off, wavering on his feet, but still standing. “We young folk are quick to recover!” he declared. “There’s no time to be lounging about. If you want me on my back again, you’d best come and lend me a hand!” he added, striding out of the room with the nurses in tow.

                Everyone stood stock still for a moment, watching Cid leave and not believing he was getting out of bed in the first place.

                Rosa gave Cecil a sidelong glance. “He certainly seems well enough,” she said dryly.

                “Indeed,” Cecil laughed with a nod.

                “So Cid is…” Edge began, fishing for a response.

                “An old friend, and the engineer behind the construction of the airships,” Kain supplied.

                “Ah,” Edge answered, comprehending at last.

                “Will he really be able to mend our airship?” Rydia asked, perplexed. “The last time, he had to go all the way to the Overworld.”

                Cecil shook his head. “Who knows,” he said with a shrug. “Cid has a way of making the impossible happen.”

                “Any idea of how long it will take him to mend said airship?” Edge inquired.

                “Why, are you that impatient to move on?” Kain asked.

                Edge shrugged. “If these airship repairs are going to take a few hours, I was thinking of maybe sitting down? We haven’t exactly paused to rest much in the past few days.”

                Kain snorted. “Tired already?”

                One of Edge’s brows shot up in an amused fashion. “I was only thinking of the ladies,” he replied, pretending to be deeply wounded by the dragoon’s words.

                Kain pursed his lips and shook his head.

                “The ladies can speak for themselves, thank you,” Rosa pointed out angrily, “But I admit, that’s not a bad idea,” she agreed reluctantly, looking meaningfully at Cecil.

                “I’m going with Cid,” Cecil said instead. “The rest of you can take it easy for a while.”

                “If you’re going with Cid, I’m coming with you,” Kain mentioned, inviting himself along.

                Cecil nodded. “I’ll come find the rest of you once the repairs are complete.”

                Cecil began to walk to the door, but Rosa reached out and gripped his arm. “Don’t let him do anything…well, _Cid-ish_ ,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes.

                “I’ll look after him,” Cecil assured her with a knowing smile and then left the room with Kain behind him.

                Rosa then gave Edge a penetrating look. “I realize you haven’t been here before, but please don’t do anything to wear out our welcome among the dwarves.”

                Edge smiled, placing his hand over his heart. “You have my word; the only person I’ll pester is Kain.”

                Rosa was not amused. “I know that you’re a prince and used to a certain level of leniency, but we are all guests here as well as in the rest of the dwarf territories.”

                “Yes, Ma’am.”

                “Good.”

                Rosa led the three of them away from the infirmary at a brisk pace and back to the inn where they had been allowed to rest the last time they were here. Rosa spoke to the dwarf in charge of the room and the dwarf nodded, gesturing toward the beds.

                Rydia saw that the room was just as they had left it—short beds pushed together—and she flopped down onto the closest one.  When she opened her eyes again, only Rosa was still in the room with her. She sat up, frowning.

                “Where has Edge gone?” she asked.

                Rosa, who looked to be half-way asleep, just shrugged. “So long as it’s quiet, I don’t mind where he’s gone,” she answered sleepily.

                Rydia thought about taking a nap, but another part of her was still annoyed. Annoyed with Edge. Careful not to disturb Rosa, Rydia crept out of the room in pursuit of the ninja. Her journey was longer than expected as she walked down long hallways and into rooms and towers with no sight of him.

                She was meandering aimlessly down one of the castle’s wings when she heard footsteps behind her.

                “Are you looking for someone?” she heard Edge ask. “Or just me?”

She spun on her heel and found him closer than she’d expected. She jabbed a finger at his chest and he gave her a confused, lopsided smile. “Explain something to me,” she seethed, doubly frustrated by him finding her and not the other way around. “One minute you’re joking, the next you’re deadly serious. Make up your mind! Why do you keep chipping away at Kain, and arguing with Cecil’s decisions, and why do you keep giving me those strange looks of yours! Your parents they—” she trailed off, but then found her resolve, lowering her voice. “This should have been your time to grieve and instead you’re making jokes and enjoying yourself at our expense. Do you feel nothing at all?”

Edge gave her a mildly apologetic look but his gaze turned hard. “Tell me this. Since we left the tower, how often have you thought about the failure of your last mission?”

A response died on Rydia’s tongue as she considered his question. “What?”

“How often have you thought about failing to take back the crystals since we left the tower?” he repeated.

She looked away, frowning. “I haven’t.”

“Exactly. There’s a time and a place for things,” he replied, pushing past her. When it was obvious she was only going to keep following him until he gave a better answer, he went on. “You needed someone to remind you what your true purpose was,” he said with a sigh. “Cecil needed to be reminded why he was leading you on this insane journey in the first place, Kain needed someone to distract him from himself, and _you_ needed to be kept informed one way or the other.”

“What do you mean, informed?” she demanded. “I’ve always known what’s been going on—what we’ve been doing this for.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, doubtful. “You must have sensed it long before now. How they always neatly hedge you out. For some reason they view you as someone much younger than you actually are, someone they feel they have to protect.”

Rydia felt her chest constrict uncomfortably. He was right. Annoyingly, he was right.

“What about you?” she asked, trying to keep up with him.

He stopped walking so suddenly she almost bumped into him. “I’ll grieve when and how I choose to. It’s none of your business,” he snapped, once again taking Rydia off-guard. It felt like he had been drawing her into his confidence only to force her out again. Was he being nice to her out of desire or necessity?

“So all of your jokes and _nonsense_ has been to distract us?” she asked angrily.

He gave her an irritated look. “Why can’t you just appreciate the gesture and move on?” he asked. “I understand that the four of you have some history behind you, and yes, I’m the new person, but even I can see there are issues. Now if you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to distract _myself_ from all of _this_ ,” he went on, gesturing to the castle around them.

Rydia stopped trying to follow him and stood in the middle of the hallway just as confused as when she’d set out. His whole demeanor had changed toward her again and she wasn’t sure which version of him was _real._

 _Damnation_ she silently cursed, and then groaned. Between Cid and Edge, she wasn’t sure who was worse of an influence. But why did the prince intrigue her so much—that mystery of there being more than what there seemed to be.

Frustrated, she turned and began walking in the opposite direction, back the way she’d come.


	18. Chapter 18

 

 

                Edge strode down the hallway of the dwarf castle, agony tearing at his insides which he hid behind a face schooled to show no emotion. How perfect it was that he had just told Rydia he had staved off their doubts for a while—distracting them with inane banter and confrontation—to disallow them from dwelling on their own failings. And now here he was, the one in need of distraction, and the most likely comfort to be found, he had left behind to ponder her thoughts alone. He felt ill, lightheaded, upended, and the strangeness of the dwarf castle was skewing his sense of reality.

                He had postponed thinking about the Tower until just this minute, and now that his companions had engaged themselves in other activities, the grief struck him powerfully. He ducked into a dark corner, one with a bench inset into it, and curled up on it, disappearing into the shadow. He brought his head to his knees and closed his eyes, gasping for air in place of the sobs he refused to utter. Their faces—the haunted, tortured faces of his parents swam across his mind’s eye. The last he had seen of them, they had been vibrant and _alive,_ not the product of some madman’s folly. They had been _people._ His _parents_. And now he would be forever left with the image of their bodies grafted with those of abominations. Not completely human, not completely monster, existing and not existing at the same time. Trapped. How terrible had their torture been? Had they been aware of it all or had there been some mercy to be found in their grotesque transformation? It was hard for him to imagine his father, the stern, fearless man that he had been, succumbing easily. And his mother, always with a quick smile and a sharp tongue—had she suffered under the butcher’s knife?

                He tried to force it all away; to think that it had happened to someone else—to someone else’s parents. Strong fingers gripped his knees; fingers trained for combat, fingers that held a sword…fingers that had once been held in turns by both of his parents. Gone. Tears escaped his eyes and traced rivers through the grime on his face. He was alone.

                He wished fleetingly that he hadn’t driven Rydia off, but at the same time, felt shame for the tears that stung his cheeks. He longed for companionship but was too proud to show the weakness that accompanied the need for it. The only person who could distract him now was himself, and he tried his best, his thoughts wandering to his new companions. What the hell had he been thinking getting caught up with these strangers from Baron? _Idiot._

                Like it or not, there was no going home. He was separated from everything he knew by a tower he had no chance of climbing, and a path to the Overworld that was blocked. He had thrown his lot in with strangers and could only follow them wherever their journey led.

                Which was where exactly?

                Who was Golbez? What did he want? What else was he after? He understood the desire for power, the craving for things that couldn’t be had, but there was always a purpose. What was the purpose behind all of this insanity? He was too exhausted to think too hard on the subject, and returned to his previous thoughts. He let his grief and sorrow flow from deep within and then he channeled it to anger. He let it grow in the pit of his stomach until it had steeled his resolve. He would find the person responsible for the death of his parents. He would bring justice to the person who had decimated his people. Golbez would _pay_ for this and he decided he didn’t care what his motivations were. Someone else should carry the burden of his pain.

                This new resolve focused his thoughts, brought some clarity. His breathing became even and his head ceased spinning. He lifted his face, staring absently at the hallway around him. With revenge as his motivation, he could keep placing one foot in front of the other. He could walk to the ends of the earth if it meant he could carve those horrible images out of his head, knowing that the person responsible was brought to justice.

                He would return to his companions with the strength to continue, but not just yet. His emotions were still too raw, too close to the surface, to face them all again. They could wait.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Rydia was dumbfounded. As she marched back to the inn, she fumed with anger. Distraction. Everything he had said and done had been to distract them, to keep them moving. She hated the feeling that she had been manipulated, but another part of her seethed at thinking she owed him thanks for postponing the dread they’d carried. And the way he’d snapped at her, it made her wonder. Was he the one who really needed to have his burden carried a while?

                She finally returned to the room she shared with Rosa, and saw the white mage just as she’d left her—asleep. She wished she could be doing the same, but the restlessness that had plagued her earlier bothered her still. She sat down on the edge of the bed she had previously claimed, but only just, as Cecil appeared in the doorway the instant she looked up.

                He looked at her with a tight smile, and then cast an inquiring glance at Rosa sleeping in the other bed.

                Rydia shrugged. “She’s been like that for a few hours now,” she supplied.

                Cecil’s smile turned down into a slight frown. “You couldn’t sleep?”

                She shook her head, staring at the empty doorway behind him. “I took a walk.”

                “And Edge?”

                She sighed deeply, perhaps a little more deeply than intended, and Cecil raised a brow. “Causing trouble?” he guessed.

                “No,” she mused. “Not exactly. He wanted to be left alone for a while.”

                Cecil looked thoughtfully at the floor between them. “I can’t say I blame him,” he murmured.

                They fell into silence for a few minutes, until Rydia finally looked at him again. “Has Cid finished the repairs?”

                “Very nearly,” Cecil replied, looking meaningfully at Rosa once more.

                Rydia followed his gaze, noting the concern on his face, the love there.

                “You want to talk to Rosa,” she surmised, and by the expression on his face, her words had caught him off-guard.

                “It’s—no, I—” he stammered ineffectually.

                “It’s alright,” she said, standing up. “I’m going to take another look around.”

                “I didn’t mean to force you out, Rydia,” he confessed.

                “I know,” she said with a small smile. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. You may as well talk.”

                She left Cecil with Rosa and returned to the halls wondering where she should go. She climbed to the upper halls and onto the ramparts where the glowing magma sea shimmered in the distance. Beyond the castle gates she could see Cid and Kain working on the airship, hammering a coat of silvery metal to the ship’s hull.

                She gazed at their work for several long minutes before turning to walk the length of the wall, fingers trailing over the crenellations. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was walking, and so when she finally lifted her head from the horizon to look at another section of the wall, she was surprised to see Edge leaning into one of the crenellations—equally entranced with the sights of the Underworld.

                He hadn’t noticed she was there, so she took the rare moment to study him. He still wasn’t wearing his mask, it was hanging loosely at his throat; and without the mask to hide his features, the magma illuminated his face with a ruddy glow. He had a distant look in his stormy eyes, and in that instant, Rydia was startled to find him quite handsome.

                He half-turned his head in her direction and saw her out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t look particularly pleased to see her, but he didn’t look angry either. He just gazed at her sideways, assessing. Rydia gathered her nerves and approached him slowly.

                When they were a few feet apart, she looked down at her feet, unable to think of anything to say. “Are you alright?” she asked sheepishly, daring to give him a fleeting look.

                He met her gaze for a second before averting his eyes to look beyond the castle wall. “As alright as anyone who’s just found out dwarves are real can be,” he answered lightly.

                She looked closely at his face for a moment. His eyes looked red, tired, and she was fairly certain he knew the real reason behind her question.

                “I’m sorry for yelling at you,” she offered, finding the act of apologizing to him galling.

                He let out a sharp breath, a half-laugh. “If you’re worried that you’ve hurt my feelings you can relax. I’ve endured worse.”

                She tilted her head to the side, considering. “No, of course not. What could ever harm you—you’re invincible, right?” she asked acerbically, turning away to lean against a crenel of her own.

                There was a pause before he spoke again. “I never said I was invincible,” he amended.

                She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Oh?”

                He narrowed his eyes a bit and a small smile crept onto his face as he leaned forward. “Nearly indestructible, maybe.”

                She hummed, unconvinced.

                Another pause.

                “So,” he began. As far as openings went, it was a precarious beginning and Rydia arched a brow waiting to hear how he finished the sentence. “If you’re from Mist, how did you wind up with Cecil?” he finally inquired.

                Rydia looked at him, but didn’t see him. She was suddenly taken aback by memories. She didn’t really want to explain her full story to him, a stranger, but hadn’t she just witnessed the death of his own parents and the wasteland that had once been his kingdom?

                “My village was destroyed by Baron,” she answered after a minute. “They dispatched two knights to do it, to carry a magical item into the middle of the village that would be released once within the village walls. Everything burned. The villagers—” she choked out, finding it harder to form words as her recollections brought old emotions to the surface.

                “You lost family,” he ventured.

                “My mother,” she said with a nod.

                “And the two knights?”

                “They had no idea what they were carrying with them,” she continued. “One of them tried to rescue me, but I—I refused to leave my mother’s side. I was so young, I reacted by instinct and summoned an Eidolon to protect myself. By the time I woke up, there was the two of us. Cecil and myself.”

                Edge studied her closely. “Just how long ago was this?”

                Rydia frowned, trying to calculate months. “Seven months ago? Maybe more?”

                “You said you were young—are you sure you didn’t mean naïve?”

                “Naïve?” she asked, offended.

                He caught the flash of anger in her words and hastily added— “You’d never encountered that kind of violence before. You hadn’t seen the attack coming.”

                She comprehended his meaning. “Well, yes, there was that. But I really did mean young.”

                This time it was his turn to frown. “I’m confused.”

                 She toyed with her fingers. How did she explain her time in the Feymarch to someone who’d only just discovered Dwarves weren’t a myth?

                “Do you remember when I told you about the Feymarch?” she asked.

                “The magical place where your Eidolons live,” he answered.

                “Well, you see,” she fidgeted. “It’s normally off-limits to humans, but I was an exception.”

                “Because you’re a summoner?”

                “Because I’m the last summoner.”

                She met his eyes again, and he was still frowning at her, still waiting for more of an answer.  “So you were allowed into a magical land where magical beings live. I’m still missing something,” he prodded.

                “Time flows differently there,” she elaborated. “For Cecil and the others, six months passed. For me…”

                His eyes suddenly widened with wonder. “For you it was years.”

                She nodded. “Ten years.”

                “You aged ten years in six months?” he was incredulous. He ran a hand through his silver hair and exhaled in disbelief. “This explains a lot, then.”

                “How so?”

                “Why they still treat you like a little girl.”

                “You said that earlier, too,” she said, pursing her lips.

                “Was I wrong?”

                Rydia looked at her feet, annoyed. “No. You weren’t wrong,” she admitted.

                “How old are you, then?”

                “Seventeen. Why does that matter—how old are you?” she asked, meeting his eyes again.

                He gave her a sly smile. “A bit older than seventeen.”*

                Frustrated by his lack of an answer, she made a face, but he had already nodded to something beyond her shoulder. She pivoted to see what he was looking at, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she turned.

                “Seems your friend Cid has finished his repairs,” she heard Edge say, and looked back to see he’d already started walking away.

                She hurried to keep up with him, exasperated.

                “Don’t you know how to wait?” she asked angrily and heard him laugh.

                “And miss all your entertaining comments?” he asked, giving her a mischievous glance over his shoulder.

                She pondered pushing him down the stairs the whole way back to the infirmary, and it took a great deal of restraint to resist the impulse.

                When they arrived in the infirmary, they found everyone there already and the nurses helping Cid back into his bed. The engineer looked exhausted but smug as Cecil and Kain each wiggled a boot off of his feet while he settled into the blankets.

                Rydia and Edge approached the side of the bed as Cid was explaining his work to Cecil and Rosa.

“That ought to let you fly over anything you want,” he said with satisfaction.

“Thank you, Cid,” Rosa told him warmly, gripping his hand as he laid back and closed his eyes.

                He didn’t respond, and for a frightening minute, they all thought he’d lost consciousness.

                “Cid!” Kain cried, shaking the engineer’s foot.

                But the engineer was still breathing, and quite deeply they realized, when he let out a snore.

                “He seems to have worn himself out,” Rydia observed with a smile.

                “He always pushes himself too hard,” Rosa agreed.

                Cecil smiled and shook his head. “Cid, thank you for everything,” he said to the sleeping man, and then nodded to Kain that they should depart the room.

                Rydia looked at the engineer sleeping so peacefully and caught sight of something poking out from beneath his pillow. She slipped it out.

                “What’s this?” she asked, flipping a long envelope over and back in her hands.

                When they had returned to the hallway, Rosa stopped to ask her what she’d found. “A letter,” Rydia revealed, holding it up for all of them to see.

                Rosa took the letter from her hand and opened it, unfolding a piece of parchment creased into three parts.

 “I’m writing this letter in case the worst should befall me,” she read. “If you’re reading this, I suppose it has. Make sure you give all those baddies an extra whack on the head for me! We owe it to our late king. No, we owe it to everybody in this world—even these people down here with their lousy food! And please apologize to my daughter for me, for all I put her through with my selfishness. All my love, Cid,” Rosa finished reading. “That man…” she said with a sigh.

                Cecil just smiled. “At least he had the decency to write a letter.”

                Rosa swatted him with it. “You call jumping off an airship and making us all think he was dead, _decent_?”

                Cecil shrugged, amused. “It’s Cid, Rosa. What did you honestly expect?”

                “Something a little more poetic, at least,” she grumbled, staring at the letter in disgust.

                “At least he was able to finish the repairs to the airship, which we owe him a great deal for. I think, for now, we can forgive him his lapse of judgment.” Kain pointed out.

                Rosa gave Kain a frigid look.

                Cecil cleared his throat, distracting them. “I think it’s time we spoke with the king about our journey to the Sealed Cave,” he said, redirecting the conversation.

                The five of them returned to the main floor and were allowed to re-enter the throne room. The king was in the middle of speaking with another dwarf in armor, but looked up when they entered.

                “Your flying contraption has been fixed, I take it?” the king asked eagerly.

                “It is, your majesty,” Cecil answered with a bow.

                “Good!” the king said heartily, clapping his hands. “This means you can depart immediately.”

                “The Sealed Cave,” Cecil mentioned. “Where exactly will we find it?”

                “It is west of here,” the king explained. “Past the magma sea and surrounded by plateaus.”

                “Directly west?” Cecil asked.

                “Well,” the king vacillated. “It’s sort of _that_ way,” he reflected with a pointing gesture toward one of the walls. “But mostly it is west.”

                “Do you have a map?”

                “A map? No,” the king answered with a curt shake of his head. “ We dwarves do not require maps to know where we are going. It should be easy enough to find if you fly.”

                “Is there anything else we should know about the Sealed Cave?” Cecil inquired.

                “So long as you have the proper key, the entrance will let you through. Beyond that, it is a matter of getting the crystal and escaping with it before Golbez can get his hands on it.”

                “With your blessing, we will be on our way, then,” Cecil announced.

                “Very good. Be on your way with my blessing and the blessings of all the dwarves. Our future rests within your hands.” The king decreed with his hand over his heart.

                The five of them bowed and were escorted out of the throne room once more.

                “West-ish?” Edge asked as they walked to the castle gates. “Could he be any more vague?”

                “I have to agree,” Kain added. “How will we know which direction is which without the sun to guide us?”

                “I’m sure it won’t be that difficult,” Cecil argued. “If the dwarves don’t need maps from the ground, surely we’ll be alright from the sky.”

                The other four members of the group each turned to look at him, doubtful.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                “You veered north when you should have veered south,” Kain intoned close to where Cecil was standing at the controls.

                “I didn’t veer north,” Cecil contradicted.

                “You veered north,” Kain repeated.

                Rydia sat on one of the stair steps on the airship, listening to the argument behind her. Hours had passed since they’d left the dwarf castle, and for a while the journey had gone well—until they’d sailed above the magma and lost sight of land. In the unceasing glow from the molten sea, they had begun to think they saw land where they didn’t, north had become south, and east had become west. The landscape below was so unchanging that there was no way for them to find their bearings despite Cecil’s earlier proclamations.

                Ignoring the argument between Cecil and Kain behind her, she looked across the ship to see what the others were up to. In the middle of the ship, Rosa was speaking to Edge. He didn’t look to be joking around with the white mage as he had with her, and in fact, his expression was very serious, thoughtful. She wondered what they were talking about, but was too content upon her step to move. Instead she stared at the red ocean below. She was so relieved that Cid had survived his fall—that they were flying again! She thought about Astrid in Baron and wondered if she had really known all along that her father was still alive. Would she smile or cry when she learned for certain that her father had lived; or would she shrug it off with a knowing grin as she often saw Edge do? Rydia smiled at the thought of the red-head crossing her arms with a proud expression on her face declaring “I knew it!” at the news.

Two miracles had brought her friends back from the brink, she realized. She had never expected to see Edward or Cid again, and yet here they were. If Cid had survived…she shook her head, curls falling loose about her shoulders. There was no possible way for Yang to have survived, she silently scolded herself. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps…. There could always be room for one more miracle.

                She looked up from the magma sea and saw Rosa and Edge both pointing at something, and then Edge shouted up to Cecil at the helm.

                “There’s land on this side!” he informed Cecil. “And a cliff you probably shouldn’t fly into,” he added, his voice rising in a crescendo of concern.

                “A cliff is something you mention first!” Cecil shouted back.

                “You’ve got eyes!” Edge retorted.

                And sure enough, a cliff loomed in front of them as an unsurpassable wall. Steam had caused it to not be as visible from a distance as it was up close, and now that it was swiftly approaching, the scope of it made Rydia’s heart drop into her stomach. Cecil veered the ship off of a collision course and they flew northward. Or at least, Rydia guessed it was north.

                After their brief brush with disaster, Cecil continued to pilot them along the cliff face, and Rydia joined Rosa and Edge at the railing.

                “I don’t think Giott meant to go this way,” Rosa was saying, looking down at the ground beneath them.

                “He said the cave was surrounded by plateaus, didn’t he?” Edge asked.

                “He did. Why?”                 Rosa asked, giving Edge a curious look.




Edge took a few steps away from the railing. “There’s a cave over there!” he shouted to Cecil, making both Rydia and Rosa cover their ears, dismayed.

Rydia leaned over the railing and saw what he was talking about—a cave nestled into plateaus and bordered by the steep cliff face.

“You don’t think—” she began, directing her question at Rosa.

“No I don’t,” Rosa replied without waiting for her to finish. “But even I’m curious at this point.”

Cecil seemed to be in agreement with Rosa as Rydia noticed the airship begin its descent.

 Cecil landed the ship near a boulder field and they disembarked, looking around. On one side, the cliff rose above them to heights unknown, and on the other, plateaus hedged them in from the magma sea. It was in the plateau directly in front of them that they saw the gaping black hole of the cavern they’d seen from the air.  

                “It’s worth a look,” Cecil said with a tired sigh, leading the five of them away from the airship.

                Once they were standing at the mouth of the cave, did Rydia have the strange sensation that they were being watched.

                “Does anyone else feel that?” she asked, rubbing her arms nervously.

                They all looked at her nonplussed. “Feel what?” Rosa asked, looking around.

                The sensation passed and Rydia just shook her head. “Nothing, I guess,” she said a little ruefully.

                Rosa gave her a quizzical look and then shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we encounter any more oddities than we already have. This is uncharted territory, after all.”

                “If you sense it again, whatever it was, let us know,” Cecil added.

                Rydia nodded and watched her companions enter the cave before her. Edge hung back with her for a minute.

                “After you,” he said, beckoning her onward and giving her a shrewd look as she passed. Had he sensed it too and just wanted her to think she was crazy? _Insufferable ninja._

                A pained shout from within the cavern caused Rydia to momentarily forget her irritation as she and Edge both ran after their companions. They didn’t have to go far to find Kain on the ground clutching his leg and Rosa at work with one of her spells.

                Rydia took a closer look at what had happened once she was standing beside the dragoon. It was his foot that had been injured. The leather and metal on the tip of his right boot looked to have been melted away and his toes were severely burned. As she watched, Rosa’s spell was knitting the flesh back together and smoothing it over, as if time was reversing. Kain’s pain visibly diminished as the spell neared completion, but the tautness remained in his jaw long after Rosa had stood.

                “The cavern floor gave out beneath him,” Cecil explained as Rosa inspected the glowing green ground around them.

                “It doesn’t look like magma,” Rosa mused. “But it’s certainly just as dangerous.”

                “Is there any way to avoid it?” Kain asked, standing up.

                Rosa placed a hard look on Kain. “Who was it that cast Float in the Tower of Babil so you wouldn’t be a pile of crushed bones on the floor after our fall?” she asked matter-of-factly.

                Kain rolled his eyes. “My apologies.”

                Rosa tossed her golden hair indignantly, and then looked farther down the cave passageway. “It seems that most of the floor is this way. I don’t think we’ll have a choice but to Float while we’re here.”

                Cecil looked at Rosa seriously. “Do you think you’ll be able to keep the spell up for that long?”

                Rosa sighed and began rummaging through her pack. “I have enough ethers. We should be fine,” she answered with pursed lips.

                “Just to be clear, this passageway counts as the entryway to the cave, right?” Edge asked, from Rydia’s left.

                Cecil and Rosa looked at him curiously. “Yes, I suppose it does,” Rosa answered, swinging her pack to rest over her quiver.

                “King Giott said the key you’re holding would grant us access if this was the Sealed Cave. I was half expecting something more spectacular than Kain burning his foot in a puddle of acid as a sign that we were welcome.”

                Kain gave the ninja a piercing, unappreciative look.

                “I had the same thought—though not about your foot, Kain,” Rosa admitted glancing first at Kain and then Cecil. “I don’t think this is the Sealed Cave.”

                “We’re already here,” Cecil said instead. “There might be something in this cave that could point us in the right direction; or at least items here that might be useful.”

                “So you still want to go ahead rather than turn back?” Rydia asked.

                “There’s so little that we know about the Underworld, and we hold the only key to the Sealed Cave. It’s been weeks since we set out for the Tower of Babil and Golbez still hasn’t managed to get into the cave in that time.”

                “Very well,” Rosa said with a shrug and then began to chant. Within a minute, the five of them hung suspended a few inches off the ground. “Shall we?” she asked, looking at Cecil.

                The paladin took his cue and turned, leading the five of them onward.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                They walked a few hours through the cave and marveled at the peculiar green glowing walls and floor. The cavern didn’t have the feel of any of the caves Rydia had traveled through in the Upper World. In fact, the structure of the walls reminded her of ancient vines, or the roots of trees that had burrowed so deep they had turned to stone. The ebb and flow of the eery green light made her think the cave was breathing—that it was a living thing—and  she spent most of her time glancing at the surroundings.

                The monsters in the cavern were as peculiar as the cave itself. Some were plant-like, others were just plain bizarre, and one in particular…Rydia shivered at the memory of the barrage of maladies it had thrown at them. In the back of her mind she recalled seeing an entry in one of the Feymarch bestiaries that described an ancient creature called a Marlboro of similar characteristics. She hoped they didn’t encounter another one. Watching Cecil turn on Kain under the madness of a spell was a sight she never wanted to see again.

                The cavern passages were winding, like they’d been carved by the passage of water. Perhaps sometime long ago, there had been water here, but its presence was long absent. The group had doubled back several times in the circuitous passages, often finding that passages were linked through small crevices. Rydia wondered at times if they were making any progress at all.

                Hours passed and they had battled their way through an unusual number of amphibious and other assorted fiends, when Edge’s voice startled her.

                “Oh, look, another frog,” Edge complained beside her. She looked ahead and saw the cause of his disgust—a blue and green spotted frog the size of a toddler. They had encountered a great many of them in the passageways, and where there were frogs there was usually also…

                “Another mage!” Rosa exclaimed, shrugging her bow from her shoulder and nocking an arrow to the string.

                These encounters had become so routine, Rydia knew what to do and immediately closed her eyes and began to chant. She wove words with meaning, summoning sky fire—lightning. She was dimly aware of all else around her, as she usually was during the casting of a spell, but she could sense movement, blades being drawn and employed. The buzz of magic filled the passage as spells were exchanged, and as she spoke the final words of Thundaga, Rydia finally opened her eyes. Lightning erupted from the ceiling, sizzling the frogs that remained to a crisp and leaving only a heap of robes where the mage had once stood.

                “I’ve never found frogs to be so irritating before,” Cecil said, sheathing his sword.

                Rosa turned, and then let out a little laugh. “Oh dear,” she sighed.

                Rydia’s senses were readjusting to reality, so she hadn’t taken the time to see how all of her companions had fared. She followed Rosa’s gaze to the floor and saw two small frogs hovering above the roil of vines. One was a dark cobalt blue, the other silver and gray. She could only imagine they were Kain and Edge, and the frogs staring up at her looked none-too-pleased.

                With a smile, she began to chant one of the most basic of black magic spells. She cast Toad, and the enchantment on the two of them faded, turning them back into two humans. Kain looked at his limbs and frowned, while Edge brushed off his arms as if he were still covered in slime.

                “Mages and their frogs,” Rydia heard Edge mutter.

                “I thought you said you were indestructible,” she countered with a sly tone.

                He gave her a tight, irritated smile. “Nearly. I said nearly,” he answered.

                They sheathed their weapons and carried on. The passageway led to stairs that had been carved into the rock and each new chamber yielded new surprises. There were secret passages that ran along the main walls and they often found old wooden chests that had been laid into nooks. There were numerous ethers and elixirs and Rydia wondered who had left them there.

                They had just entered a wide, long cavern with a high ceiling, when suddenly Rosa had pulled Cecil forward, pointing. Rydia rounded the corner to see what had caught the other woman’s interest. In the center of the chamber was an elaborate arrangement of marble stanchions driven into the cave floor. In the center looked to be a dias of some kind, or a platform long in disuse.

                “What—?” Rosa asked, leaving her question hanging in the air.

                “I almost thought it was a Crystal dias,” Cecil said with disappointment.

                Kain walked forward, looking the entire chamber over. “It might have been,” he said thoughtfully, resting a hand on one of the stanchions.

                Rosa also walked forward. “These look like wards,” she added, walking within the circle of stanchions. “Yes, definitely wards,” she confirmed, holding out her hands palms upward as if she were collecting raindrops. “I can feel their magic.”

                The rest of them followed, walking within the circle and inspecting the platform.

                “We could rest here,” Rydia realized, enjoying the feeling of protection the wards offered as she walked between them.

                “We could,” Rosa agreed, sitting gingerly down on one of the dias steps.

                Cecil smiled. “I see you’ve already made the executive decision,” he noted.

                Rosa had a satisfied look on her face. “I need to rest my voice, after all.”

                With the decision to rest already made, they each shrugged their packs from their shoulders and found places to sit down along the platform steps.                               




                Cecil and Rosa sat beside each other and Kain sat close, but far enough to give them some privacy. Rydia sat on the opposite side of the dias, which was at least thirty feet in diameter. She set her pack beside her and began to rummage through it, looking for an ether. A few minutes later, Edge joined her on the step.

                He handed her an ether as he sat down. She looked at it like it was anathema, having just found one in her pack and not wanting to accept his generosity. She gave him a look, but grudgingly accepted the phial from his hand.

                “I had plenty of my own, you know,” she said a little caustically.

                “I know,” he said simply; turned so he was facing her and the rest of the group simultaneously. She realized he wasn’t actually looking at her, but at Cecil and Rosa. She followed his gaze and frowned.

                 “Why are you looking at them like that, like you’ve caught a scent or something?”

He spared her a look with a small grin. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

His look became flat, and then he quirked an eyebrow upwards. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“About what?” she asked, unaware, removing the stopper from the phial.

“And you’ve been traveling with these people for how long, again?

“Months,” Rydia answered in between sips of ether.

He shook his head in disbelief and then nodded in the direction of their three companions. “You’ve got a regular love triangle over there.”

“A love…what?”

Edge waved his hand dismissively in the air. “Nevermind that for now. She’s in love with _him,”_ he said, pointing from Rosa to Cecil. “ _He’s_ in love with _her_. But _he_ is also in love with her,” he added, nodding in Kain’s direction.

“Who, _Kain_?” Rydia asked, aghast.

She had said the dragoon’s name loud enough, that Cecil turned to glance at her quizzically.

She made an apologetic expression and to her left she saw Edge shake his head, feigning innocence. This seemed to satisfy Cecil who returned his attention to Rosa. When Rydia turned to face the ninja again, Edge was giving her an accusatory look which she took to mean she should keep her voice down in the future.

“Anyway,” Edge continued with his voice at a conspiratorial volume. “ _She_ senses it. Cecil doesn’t. And this makes Kain angrier.”

“How long have you known?” Rydia asked, amazed.

Edge let out a soft chuckle. “From the moment I met you people. I’m good at what I do, and that’s rubbing people the wrong way and reading them quickly. You, on the other hand. You’re harder to read than they are.”

“Me?”

He leaned closer, a little too close for Rydia’s comfort, and looked her in the eye. “Guess I’ll just have to keep trying to figure you out,” he said with a roguish glint in his eye.

                Rydia leaned back, supporting her weight with her arms.

“Why are you always paying so much attention to _me?_ Why don’t you ever talk to Rosa half as much,” she protested.

“I have no intention of being the fourth pillar of a love square,” he countered, pulling away. “That’s just bad form.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rydia complained.

“And this is precisely why I find you more interesting,” he answered with a smile, standing up.

Annoyed, she threw the empty ether phial at him, and with no small amount of disappointment, he caught it in mid-air with reflexes fit for a cat.

He looked down at her, unimpressed, and then flicked a finger at the corner of his mouth, as if he had a crumb there and grinned. “You missed your mouth a bit,” he informed her, walking away a little too smugly.

She hastily rubbed the errant drop of ether from her mouth and glared at him as he sat down at another point of the dias’ circumference.

 _Why is he so obnoxious!_ she fumed. She glanced back at Cecil and Rosa and this time it was Rosa who had turned to look at her. The expression on Rosa’s face was amused, and a little coy, as her gaze slid significantly from Rydia to Edge and back again. Rydia felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment. But embarrassment for what? She hadn’t done anything embarrassing, had she? She had absolutely no idea what secret meaning was hidden within Rosa’s appraisal.

Rydia spun around and resolved to facing the cavern wall and _only_ the cavern wall until they started moving again. But as she sat staring at nothing in particular, Edge’s words came back to her. _Kain_ was in love with Rosa, too? She wondered at it, re-playing all the moments they’d been together in her mind. Suddenly so many other things made sense to her—why there had been all of the tension, all of the long looks, the arguments…and then she was furious because _she_ hadn’t figured it out. She glanced once more in Edge’s direction. He had said that she was harder to read than the rest of them. What did that mean? She wasn’t deliberately hiding anything. She was just herself…wasn’t she?

When they finally stood and resumed their explorations of the rest of the cavern, Rydia discovered, with some perturbation, that Edge had taken to walking closest to her out of all the group. He caught her elbow when the Float spell wore off and she tripped on a peculiar ancient root affixed to the cavern floor. He pushed her out of the way of fiend attacks, casually tossed her ethers when she felt the fatigue of magic casting beginning to wear on her. How he knew to do any of these things without her saying a word, she wasn’t sure, but she eyed him suspiciously. For all of his irritating remarks and comments, and the confusion he caused, his actions surprised her.

As the caverns delved deeper, the footing became more varied. There were hills and slopes, tight corners, and more fake walls. Vines began to hang from the ceiling like hair and a short way farther, unusual leaves unfurled from the cavern walls. They were pale and waxy and glowed in concurrence with the luminescence of the cavern floor.

                Rosa reached out tentative fingers to one of the leaves and it curled away from her touch.

                “How curious,” she mused. “It’s like this whole cavern is the underbelly of a tree. It seems sentient.”

                “I’m not sure whether to be amazed or concerned,” Kain noted darkly.

The chests and crates that they discovered in these deeper portions of the cave held some very curious items as well. Cecil was right in thinking that there would be something of use for them to find. Rosa had come across an old but sturdy bow made of a wood that had the appearance of oxidized copper. It was speckled and mottled but slender and strong. Rosa discarded her previous bow for this new one, admiring the craftsmanship and tautness of the bowstring. Rydia, on the other hand, had become the new owner of a dagger with a delicately filigreed handle with runes carved into the blade for the purpose of binding mages. Convenient, she thought, since they had fought a witch and her frog army in order to get to the blade itself.

                Their journey continued, the passages widening again and becoming more like roads with vaulted ceilings above them. This was odd, Rydia thought.

                They descended a well-tended stone staircase and found themselves in a passageway that, despite the glowing floor, looked like it belonged inside a castle. They followed this passage to its end at a tall, wide chamber with a peculiar building with a porch and stairs set against the far cavern wall.

                They all came to a halt, staring at the unexpected building and at each other.

                “What is that?” Rosa asked, her voice hoarse from having to cast Float so many times in succession.

                “I don’t know, but it’s worth a look,” Cecil answered, leading the way forward.

                They walked up the steps to the door, and for all appearances, it looked to be an ordinary home made of speckled green wood. There was a peculiar glow that emanated through the windows, a greenish tint that was different from the rest of the cave. Cecil’s hand gripped the door’s latch and he slowly pushed it open. When the door was opened more than a crack, small creatures with the vague appearance of fireflies flew angrily out of the house and flitted and buzzed around each of their heads, casting magic that crackled on their skin and felt like nettles.

                Rosa began casting a Protection spell on them and once the glow of white magic surrounded them like a shield, did their miniature opponents cease their attack. Once they’d stopped moving around so frantically, Rydia saw that they weren’t fireflies at all, but more like Faeries. The Faeries* hovered at the edge of the Protection spell, eyeing the humans with fear and distrust.

                Cecil held up both of his hands in surrender. “We mean no harm,” he offered with a soft, even tone.

                The Faeries glared at the five of them, wings beating the air furiously.

                Rosa startled everyone when she suddenly exclaimed, “Yang!” and rushed past the open doorway and into the room, taking her protection spell with her. The faeries’ expressions turned to dismay as they flitted after her, trying to obstruct her path.

                At the mention of the monk’s name, Rydia’s spirit sang. Could it be? Was it possible? The rest of them followed Rosa in stunned silence until they’d entered an annex of the room where a man lay sleeping in a bed. There was a green glow encasing the bed, much like that of a white magic spell, and through it, Rydia saw Yang. His skin was badly burned in many places and he looked bruised overall, but the slow rise of his chest revealed he was still breathing.

                “He’s alive!” she exclaimed.

                They had time enough to glimpse him injured upon the bed, before the Faeries renewed their magical assault.

                “We can’t stay here!” Cecil cried.

                “But what about Yang!” Rosa protested, clearly distressed at the thought of leaving their companion in the hands of pint-sized strangers.

                “We’ll think of something, but right now we have to leave!” Cecil said, grabbing Rosa’s wrist and pulling her away from the bedroom. The Faeries pursued them across the length of the house, driving them up a set of wooden stairs and into a room with nothing in it but a strange device set into the floor.

                The Faeries surrounded them, harassing them with the obnoxious magic that felt like stinging nettles and they were herded onto the device that seemed to be a curious looking glass. The instant all five of them were standing on it, it whisked them away.

                They found themselves dazed and blinking at the entrance to the cave.

                Rosa took a few furious steps forward, pacing. “I can’t believe it,” she muttered, hands on hips.

                “Rosa?” Cecil asked.

                Rosa swiveled to face him, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes. “He’s alive, Cecil. Alive,” she warbled out.

                “Yes, and we’ll find a way to bring him home,” Cecil assured her calmly.

                “How? Who—what—who _were_ those faeries caring for him? Is he their prisoner or their ward?” Rosa insisted.

                Rydia’s gaze flitted from Rosa to Cecil, and she saw Cecil furrow his brow, choosing his next words carefully.

                “He didn’t look to be in any danger,” he admitted.

                “But they attacked _us,”_ Rosa persisted.

                “We were intruders in their home,” Kain pointed out. “Wouldn’t you have attacked strangers many times your size?”

                Rosa hung her head and sighed. “Yes, I suppose I would, but…”

                “He’s alive,” Rydia said quietly, surprising them. When they all turned to look at her, she blushed. “At least he’s alive,” she repeated. “We know where he is now, and Meiling doesn’t have to be sad, thinking that he’s dead.”

                “Well, yes, but how can we go back for him? We were in that cave for hours and we don’t have the time to go all the way back.”

                “It looked like they were tending his wounds,” Kain said thoughtfully. “Why else would they keep a dying man alive but to heal him?”

                “So we just leave him there?” Rosa asked.

                “What else can we do?” Cecil asked.

                Rosa planted her hands on her hips and stared absently at the cave entrance. “You’re right, you’re right, I know. I just…after all he’s done for us, it’s hard to leave him lying in a cave.”

                Cecil steered her around, walking back to the airship with his arm draped across her shoulders.

                She’d barely noticed Edge was beside her again until he spoke, interrupting her thoughts. “As the new person, is there something I should know about my life expectancy with this group?” he asked. “It seems that the people you pick up on your travels tend to end up maimed in beds somewhere.”

                Rydia scoffed at him, and smacked him in the arm.

                He gave her a serious look. “It’s a fair question,” he pointed out.

                “If the only person you’re concerned about is yourself,” Rydia replied sourly.

                “So what exactly is it that makes these people end up the way we’ve found them? Do they jump off of buildings or throw themselves into the path of explosions?”

                “Cid jumped off of an airship,” Rosa supplied from the front, sounding more annoyed with Cid than Edge.

                Edge’s eyebrows crawled together with concern. “I thought you people were joking. He actually _jumped_ off of an airship? For what possible reason?”

                “To set off a bomb that would create a cave-in, allowing us to escape from pursuers,” Cecil answered.

                Edge eyed each of them. “Seriously?”

                “You went up against the Fiend of Fire by yourself, is that any more unbelievable?” Kain asked.

                Edge smirked at Kain. “Touché,” he replied. “But what about the man we just found—Yang? What happened to him?”

                “He held down a dead-man switch to destroy a cannon inside the Tower of Babil,” Kain supplied.

                “He voluntarily blew himself up,” Edge confirmed.

                “He sacrificed himself to spare an entire people,” Rosa added in the monk’s defense. “He is a man of honor, always thinking of others.”

                “Interesting,” Edge said, his expression bored.

                Rydia was the only person to observe his blatant lack of respect and swatted his arm again. He looked at her sidelong.

                “What do you have against people who sacrifice themselves for others?” she demanded.

                “Nothing,” he answered idly. “They’re just so…” he trailed off, screwing his features into a displeased expression as he searched for the right word. “Predictable,” he finally answered.

                “Predictable?” she asked.

                He sighed, clearly wanting to say something but thinking better of it. Instead, “Rest assured, I will never throw myself into the path of an explosion for you,” he said with a mocking expression.

                Rydia returned his look with a bland one of her own. “How noble,” she retorted, as they climbed back aboard the airship.

                “To each their own,” he said with a shrug.

                Rosa let out a groan. “For now can we focus on reaching the Sealed Cave?” she asked, looking expectantly at Cecil.

                Cecil seemed offended by Rosa’s lack of confidence. “We’ll find the Sealed Cave,” he assured her.

                Rosa looked at Kain. “Maybe you should pilot for a while,” she suggested.

                Kain seemed genuinely surprised. He looked between Rosa and Cecil as Cecil glared at them both.

                “Hell, I’ll pilot,” Edge complained, striding toward the controls in the midst of the indecision.

                “No!” Cecil and Kain both shouted in unison, running after the ninja who had taken off at a sprint. The three men crashed to a stop at the controls, arguing over who knew where they were supposed to go.

              Rydia raised her brows and looked at Rosa.        




                Rosa’s face was clearly not amused, and the white mage had only to utter one word to sum up the entire situation:

“Men.” 


	19. Chapter 19

 

                It was Cecil who won the right to pilot the airship after the argument at the helm lasted nearly half an hour. Rydia had cast some rather spectacular magic that had caused them all to pause long enough for Rosa to speak sense.

                In the intervening hours, Kain and Edge had both taken to sulking, and Rydia had decided to try her hand at navigation. It was an arrangement that suited her, as it kept her occupied, and it kept Edge and his unusual solicitations at bay. They had returned to the air hours ago, following land until it melted again into the magma sea. Great columns of earth rose out of the sea and reached up to the ceiling of the Underworld like great trees and Cecil flew around them easily while they scanned the magma below for signs of land.

                Cecil flew them east and south, and it was some time before they finally saw land again. This time, it was Rydia who saw it first, and this time, she was the one who demanded they set down.

                Once the ship’s landing gears had all engaged and the ship’s propellers were rotating to a slow stop, did Rydia practically run down the gang plank.

                “Rydia?” Cecil asked, walking more slowly behind her.

                She had a broad smile on her face as she turned to face him and the rest of the group. “It’s alright,” she assured them.

                “What is?” Rosa asked, quizzically.

                “I know where we’re going,” Rydia explained.

                Cecil and Kain both looked in all directions, finally seeing the outcropping of rock where the entrance to another cave could be seen.

                “This isn’t the Sealed Cave,” Edge pointed out. “There are no plateaus of any kind.”

                “No, this isn’t the Sealed Cave,” Rydia admitted. “But you’ll just have to trust me. Come on!” she said, picking up the pace and leading the way to the mouth of the cave.

                She knew her request must have sounded insane, but at the moment, she wasn’t particularly bothered. She _knew_ this island—she was so close to the Feymarch for the first time in _weeks._ She hadn’t realized how strong her home-sickness was until now, and all she wanted was to open the door to the house she’d grown up in, see Black curled up in a pool of sunlight on the floor, and smell all the ancient tomes she’d spent hours and hours poring over. Ramuh would offer her a cup of strong tea, and Shiva would listen gravely to all of her comings and goings with a curt nod at all the appropriate places, while Mist would smile knowingly and probably remark on how much she’d grown.   

                “Rydia?” Rosa asked again, trotting to keep up with her.

                Rydia looked at her friend, not realizing how quickly she’d been walking.

                “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you this excited. Where exactly are we going?” the white mage asked, a confused grin on her lips.

                Rydia’s smile widened. “It’s a surprise,” she answered.

                They entered the cavern, and Rydia stopped, taking in a deep breath. It had the same earthy ancient scent that she remembered—almost like that of a long-forgotten tomb.

                “Rosa, you’ll want to cast Float,” she advised, remembering the perils of the cavern floor.

                Rosa cast her a bewildered glance, but obliged. Once the five of them were suspended a few inches off of the ground once more, did Rydia lead them onward.

                “Are you going to explain any of this?” Rosa asked, her gaze flitting about to different corners of the glowing cavern.

                “Rydia,” Cecil added from behind. “I’m not sure we really have the time for any more detours.”

                A grin crept back onto her face and she shook her long hair. “Where we’re going, time won’t matter so much,” she explained, ignoring the peculiar looks given by her friends.

 

0-0-0-0

 

                Just before they were about to step onto the portal that led to the Feymarch, Rydia halted.

                “Rydia?” Cecil asked, both curious and concerned. The chamber they had entered was small and there was nothing else in it save for the placard on the floor. “Are you sure you know this place and where that device will take us?”

                Her breaths had become shaky, nervous. “It’s alright,” she assured him, but by now she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else. In truth, she had no idea what the Eidolons would think of her arrival; least of all, their opinion of her companions. She was taking an awful risk by bringing them here, but she wanted to introduce them to her family, to her world.

                “It’s just,” she added after a moment’s pause. “Once we’re on the other side, if you could let me do the explaining.”

                No one said anything, waiting for her to take the lead.

                With a steadying breath, she stepped onto the portal and was whisked away from the cavern environs and into the place she knew so well.

                Once she was standing within the Feymarch, she moved away from the portal, granting her friends room to disembark. They followed one by one, Cecil first, Edge last, and once they were all standing beside her, they were all looking about them in complete and utter amazement. Rydia felt giddy with excitement—she had gotten them all this far!

                “Come on,” she prodded with a smile, leading them away from the portal and onto the main avenue. She wondered how long it would take for someone to realize she had returned. Not long, she imagined.

                Sure enough, the moment she rounded the corner of one of the Feymarch’s buildings, she saw Shiva striding toward her along one of the intersecting paths.

“Rydia?” Shiva asked, one delicately sculpted brow suspiciously arched. “I had heard—” and then she stopped, suddenly seeing the others. Silver blue eyes locked Rydia under their scrutiny. “No warning, Rydia?” the Eidolon asked through tightly pressed lips.

                Rydia smiled her most disarming smile. “Surprise!” she said, though her tone was lacking its normal buoyancy. “You’re furious with me, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice much smaller than before.

                Shiva just looked at her, unimpressed. “Oh, girl, you have much explaining to do,” the woman sighed. “First, you should follow me before the sight of your friends causes a scene, if it hasn’t already,” she ordered, beckoning curtly for Rydia to keep up as she wheeled away and strode down the road along a route that Rydia knew so well, she could have followed in her sleep.

                Shiva led them through the streets of the Feymarch at a brisk pace. They walked past the homes with all of their architectural eccentricities, the buildings where curios and goods were kept, and the meeting places where many Eidolons spent hours ruminating about the outside world. The wooden planks made interesting creaks underneath their feet, from the clicks of Rydia’s own boots, to the rhythmic thumping of Cecil and Kain’s armored feet. There were very few Eidolons in the streets, but Rydia could feel their invisible eyes. It was the same with most places she had traveled—the unseen scrutiny of the community. She felt very self-conscious, anxious, for her friends. She wanted to introduce them properly, but feared she’d made a terrible mistake by not warning any of the Eidolons she was coming.

                She followed Shiva, head held high, and avoided the curious glances she was no doubt receiving from her friends walking behind her.

                Shiva brought her to the house Rydia knew--the diamond shaped window above the door just as she remembered. They stepped inside and she saw her bed against the right wall, and the table stacked high with old books just as she had left them. Shiva stepped into the center of the room and allowed the five humans to filter in behind her. Once the five of them were all in the room, with Rydia and Shiva standing to one side, the door slammed shut with the arrival of one more, a lithe feline form weaving between the legs of Kain and Cecil. Both the men jumped when they saw what they thought to be a couerl walking with unflagging steps toward Rydia.

                It was Rosa who finally broke the silence. “Rydia? What exactly is this place and who—?” she asked, gesturing toward Shiva and Black.

                Rydia cast a hesitant glance toward Shiva, who looked back at her blandly. “This is the Feymarch,” she explained, nervously. “And this is Shiva—though in a different form than you’re used to.”

                “What, are you just going to forget about me?” Black asked tartly from his vantage point on the floor.

                Rydia felt a small smile spread across her lips. “And this is Black, another of the Eidolons.”

                Rydia saw the brows of all of her companions rise with incredulity. “Eidolons?” Cecil asked, flabbergasted. “This is—I thought—”

                Rydia wrung her hands together. “Technically, it is forbidden for humans to enter this realm…”

                “Technically?” Shiva asked, unamused.

                “It was on the way,” Rydia explained with a sideways glance.

                “Rydia, in a thousand years, I’ve never known someone willing to break quite so many rules with quite so little thought,” Shiva replied, her tone flat.

                “I was never _expressly_ told I couldn’t bring anyone past the portal,” Rydia argued. “Besides, I wanted to speak to Leviathan and Asura,” she added, trying to add credibility to her visit.

                “Oh?” Shiva asked. “And were you planning on walking your companions into the throne room unannounced?”

                Rydia rested her hands on her hips, and exclaimed with as much exasperation as she could manage, “It was a last minute decision!”

                “May I speak with you in private?” the Eidolon asked, indifferent to Rydia’s distress, and gestured her toward the door.

                Rydia exhaled sharply through her nose and followed Shiva out of the room. Before she left, she turned back to everyone. “Just wait here,” she requested. “I’ll be back.”

 

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                Edge watched Rydia leave with the woman she claimed was Shiva, intrigued. His gaze flicked from the door to the remaining three companions, and then around the room. This was the Feymarch? It wasn’t at all how he’d imagined it to be from Rydia’s description; and this house just felt so, well, _normal._ He took a few more steps into the room toward the table piled high with books. He was under the impression that Shiva wouldn’t have led them to this particular house if it hadn’t been of significance to Rydia. Was this where she had spent the last ten years of her life? Had she paged through each of these tomes? He was about to flip open one of the books’ covers when the coeurl jumped atop the table and put both of its front paws on top of the book with a cool sort of look in its amber eyes. Edge stared at the coeurl Rydia had identified as “Black” and retracted his hand slowly.

                “You’re a curious one,” Black observed sourly, his whiskers dipping into a frown.

                “So are you,” Edge countered. “You’re not what I expected from an Eidolon.”

                “Why, is it my form that surprises you?” Black asked idly.

                Edge made a thoughtful expression. “More your size,” he answered with a sly smile.

                The two of them gauged each other, narrowing their eyes, until Rosa threw up her hands in exasperation.

                “Only five minutes in, and you’re already goading someone!” she complained.

                Edge cast the white mage an unruffled glance, still curious at what was written on the pages in the book. Obviously it was sensitive material, and he didn’t think the Eidolon would be too keen on him seeing it.

                Black was still looking at him in the way cats do, assessing, calculating, but Edge did his best to ignore it. “You are all Rydia’s companions. The ones she spoke of,” Black said after a minute.

                “Yes,” Cecil confirmed, stepping forward. “My name is Cecil, and this is Rosa, Kain, and Edge,” he added, gesturing to where Edge was standing by the table.

                Black looked at each of them, his tail twitching authoritatively against the tabletop. “The first three names I recognize. The last?” he said, sliding his glance to rest back on Edge, “I do not recall.”

                “Recent addition,” Edge supplied dryly. For reasons he didn’t comprehend, he disliked the pint-sized Eidolon. It felt like they were being interviewed by a protective sibling and it was a dynamic that made it difficult for Edge to know where he stood.

                “Please pardon us for coming unannounced,” Rosa said, trying to smooth things over. “We had no idea.”

                “So long as you don’t interrupt our lives here and so long as you don’t _touch_ anything,” he added, looking again at Edge, “Your stay here shouldn’t be a problem. However, that’s between Rydia and the king and queen now.”

                “The king and queen?” Rosa asked.

                “Leviathan and Asura, of course,” Black explained.   




                “Leviathan—” Cecil started.

                “And Asura?” Rosa finished, both of them stunned.

                “They govern this realm, yes,” Black answered.

Even Edge was surprised. He recognized one of the names, but not because of Rydia. His people often told tales of Leviathan and many ships lost at sea from the fury of the mighty sea dragon. The notion that the creature of legend from the Upperworld could be the very same Eidolon king bent his mind in strange ways. But then, it probably shouldn’t have surprised him after what he’d already seen in the past few days.

                “And you’re one of the Eidolons?” Cecil clarified.

                “I thought we’d already been through this,” Black replied.

                “Why is it we’ve never seen you among any of the Eidolons Rydia has summoned?”

                Black swished his tail back and forth. “Rydia does not have leave to summon me.”

                “I don’t understand,” Rosa said, “Doesn’t she just call your name and you answer? Aren’t you contracted to respond?”

                “A summoner must call us by name, yes; but it is our true name they must know. Without that, a summoning is merely words.”

                “And your name is?” Edge asked with a sly smile.

                Black gave him another sharp look. “Sneaky, but a waste of breath,” he warned, the hint of a growl in his throat.

                “Rydia doesn’t know your true name,” Rosa realized, redirecting the conversation.

                Black nodded. “An Eidolon’s true name must be earned.”

                “And how exactly does one accomplish such a feat?” Rosa asked.

                Black swished his tail a few times before answering. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” He then turned to Cecil. “How is it that your group came upon our cavern?”

                Cecil shrugged, at a loss. “Rydia, really.”

                Black rolled his eyes. “Of course—but what I meant was, where were you really trying to go? Surely the Feymarch wasn’t on your itinerary.”

                “We’re traveling to the Sealed Cave,” Cecil explained. “The directions given to us by the Dwarves weren’t particularly helpful, so we’ve been flying for a while now with no success.”

                “The Sealed Cave?” Black asked. “It sounds familiar, but I’ve never been to it myself.”

                “Do you know which direction to travel from here?” Kain asked.

                Black shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m not the one to ask for directions. I rarely venture forth from the Feymarch. There is another Eidolon or two who could help you, but until you’re given permission to do anything within the bounds of this realm, you won’t be able to speak to them.”

                “What should we do in the meantime?” Cecil asked.

                “You wait.”

 

 

 

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                “Rydia, what were you thinking, bringing other humans here?” Shiva asked, incensed.

                Rydia took a few steps back, and turned on her heel, pacing. “I couldn’t just wander through the cave by myself, and what did you want me to do, leave them by the portal?” she asked, turning to face Shiva again.

                “Yes, that’s exactly what I would have wanted,” Shiva retorted, blue eyes cold.

                “They’re not a danger to you—to any of you!” Rydia exclaimed. “These are the people who are fighting Golbez!”

                Shiva studied her shrewdly for several minutes. “Cecil and Rosa, yes. But what about the other companions? Are you not traveling with the man who betrayed his friend? And with a stranger who could just as well betray you also?”

                “I’m undecided on Kain, I admit,” Rydia conceded, “But on the others, I’m certain.”

                “That’s wonderful, because I’m not.”

                Rydia looked hard at Shiva, trying not to let her gaze waver. They had been through this before, this battle of wills, and Rydia was determined to win this round. Eventually, she broke her gaze when she noticed Mist past Shiva’s shoulder, walking toward them.

                “Rydia!” Mist announced, closing the distance between them until she was standing beside Shiva. Mist took a moment to look Rydia up and down with concern, while Shiva rolled her eyes.

                “Mist!”  Rydia said with a smile, stepping forward to hug her friend.

                “The rumor was that you’d returned, but I didn’t expect to actually see you _here,”_ the Eidolon commented, running fingers through Rydia’s long green hair as a worried parent might.

                “Yes, and she brought guests,” Shiva added dryly, arms still crossed.

                Mist’s brows rose as she looked first at Shiva and then Rydia. “Guests? You brought humans here?”

                “Cecil and the others,” Rydia explained.

                Mist’s gray eyes narrowed and she took a step backwards. “The two responsible for trapping me in the Void are here,” she clarified.

                Rydia took a deep breath. “Yes,” she answered, daring to meet Mist’s gaze.

                “Rydia, what were you thinking—bringing them here?” Mist demanded, a sudden flash of anger painting her words.

                “Cecil is not the same man that he was,” Rydia said hurriedly. “He walked away from that life.”

                “And what about the man named Kain? I heard he was a part of your traveling group. Is he not the same man that he was?”

                Rydia set her jaw, torn between defending one friend and wondering if she should even bother mounting a defense for Kain. “Kain is…he has his flaws, but I don’t believe him to be a threat any longer.”

                Mist tossed her snowy hair. “Rydia, did it ever occur to you that any one of them could be a spy for Golbez?” she asked. “They should leave. Now,” she added, glancing back at the door to the house where Rydia’s companions had been left to wait.

                “None of them is a spy for Golbez,” Rydia argued, her tone a little desperate. “Why don’t you just speak to them,” she pled, reaching out to grip Mist’s hand.

                “I will fight by your side, but don’t expect me to exchange pleasantries with the men who stole my life and caused me to dwell in a nightmare land,” Mist hissed, drawing her arm back, and unexpectedly turning away to leave the way she’d come.

                Rydia looked at Shiva, but the other woman had nothing to say.

                “I know you’re not happy with me, and I know you and Mist both have your reasons, but I would not have brought them here if I didn’t trust them,” she expressed to Shiva, her voice tight with emotion. “Can we at least stay the night here?” Rydia asked. “I still want to speak with Asura—it’s important.”

                “Mist is right, you know,” Shiva replied. “Any one of them could be a spy. They should spend the night in the caverns, or better yet, on whatever manner of transport you used to reach this island.”

                “Then I go with them,” Rydia said flatly. “At least one night,” she tried again. “And could you at least tell Asura that we’re here?”

                Shiva pursed her lips, her eyes frigid. “Why I take any risks for you at all,” she muttered at last. “One night,” she declared. “But they stay where they are and no one leaves that house unless escorted by me.”

                Rydia nodded. “I understand,” she replied. “I’m sorry, Shiva—really.”

                Shiva shook her head. “I’ll come for you in the morning with news, but don’t expect anything other than a trip back to the caverns,” she said, striding away.  
  


 

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                Rydia returned to the house, opening the door to find all of her friends standing about the room waiting for answers.

                “Is everything alright?” Cecil asked.

                Rydia slid her gaze to the side with a grimace on her face. “We’ve been allowed to stay the night, at least,” she answered.

                Black dropped down to the floor from his perch atop the table. “Shiva scolded you thoroughly, I gather,” he said.

                Rydia sighed. “It was Mist, actually.”

                Black studied Rydia’s face for a moment, swishing his tail back and forth. “Curious.”

                Rydia made a face at him and walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and flopped down on it. “She’ll come around. I know it,” she said.

                “And Shiva?”

                Rydia crossed her arms defensively. “It’ll work out.”

                “What happens tomorrow?” Rosa asked.

                “Well, if Shiva insists on being difficult, we’ll be asked to leave.  In the meantime, we have the night to stay here. If things go well, tomorrow we’ll be allowed to see the king and queen and I might have the chance to introduce you to some of my family,” Rydia explained.

                “Pardon me,” Black interrupted. “I’m going to have a few words with Shiva while the rest of you talk.”

                They all watched him leave the room, and once he was gone, Rosa fixed her attention on Rydia again.

                “How does Black fit into your family?” she asked.

                Rydia smiled, losing herself in her thoughts. “He’s kind of like a brother,” she explained. “A very annoying brother,” she added, laughing.

                Cecil and Rosa both looked at her curiously.

                “And what about Shiva?” Edge asked.

                “Shiva was my teacher mostly, but I suppose she was also like a sister to me.”

                “Rydia, you really _lived_ here all those years?” Rosa asked, looking around the room. “Was this _your_ house?”

                Rydia took a moment to look around as well. “Yes, it was. I learned to read and write and recite incantations here.”

                “And you didn’t get bored, being here for ten years?” Edge inquired, a horrified expression on his face.

                “It’s not like I was trapped in this one room,” Rydia replied. “I was allowed to explore the Feymarch and to even leave and venture into the caverns on occasion. I was never completely bored.”

                “But what did you do—for fun, I mean,” Rosa added after a minute.

                Rydia tilted her head to the side, considering. “I spent a lot of time just talking to the Eidolons,” she admitted. “There’s so much history here about both them and my people; that I would sit for hours and hours listening to all the stories.”

                “What kind of stories?” Cecil asked.

                “Where the Eidolons came from and how the Summoners learned magic. Where magic came from,” she went on.

                “The origins of magic?” Rosa asked. “You mean, all magic? Their memory reaches that far?”

                “The Eidolons are ancient,” Rydia explained with a laugh. “And they are also wise. Well, most of them, anyway. There are a few who would be considered young, but even they are many hundreds of years old.”

                “How is that even possible?” Rosa asked, crossing her arms.

                “They live off of magic,” Rydia added. “This entire realm is maintained by magic and by the symbiotic relationship between the Summoners and the Eidolons. They hardly age. In fact, they’re practically immortal.”

                “And they told you about the origins of magic?” Rosa asked, incredulous.

                “I was told that magic entered the world when the Crystals appeared,” Rydia explained. “It was so long ago hardly anyone remembers when exactly it happened; but the Crystals caused creatures to be changed into beings of great power and magic. Some of those creatures became fiends. Others became Eidolons. And finally, magic came to humans. A few humans learned to harness magic as the mages do, and there were a few others who were born to magic.”

                During the telling of her tale, Rydia noticed all of her friends leaning forward, engaged in the story. She happened to notice Edge’s scrutiny of her intensify most of all, but she couldn’t imagine why.

                “People born into magic,” Rosa repeated. “I’ve never met someone with magic born to them. Do such people even still exist?”

                Rydia’s expression fell as she remembered Ramuh telling her of the Great War and the massacre of those who were magic-born. The Adrin.

                “I don’t know,” she answered. “Not even the Eidolons know if any such people remain in the world.”

                “What happened to them?” it was Cecil’s turn to ask.

                Rydia allowed her gaze to fasten itself to the far wall, not really focusing on anything in particular. “War,” was all she said.

                Everyone fell silent after that, imagining a long-lost society and a world they’d never know.

                “It always comes back to the Crystals,” Cecil reflected at last. “They were the origin of magic, the reason for wars, the balancing forces of nature, and now, somehow, they share a connection with the twin moon. Where on earth did they come from?”

                “Who built the Tower of Babil?” Edge asked from his side of the room. “Find the answer to _that_  question and you might find an answer to the first.”

                Rydia and the others looked at the ninja prince.

                “It’s true,” Rosa admitted. “We have no idea who constructed the tower. Perhaps they were our ancient ancestors?”

                “But where did _they_ get the crystals from?” Edge asked again. “I have a feeling that whatever plot Golbez is hatching will lead us to some very interesting answers.”

                Cecil sighed deeply. “This conversation is tying my thoughts into knots. I think we should get some rest before we get lost in a sea of questions.”

                Rydia laughed. “Can you see now, why I was hardly ever bored?” she asked.

                Rosa smiled back at her, her eyes twinkling. “I definitely can,” she replied.

                Rydia looked about the room and was suddenly dismayed. “Oh,” she said, realizing. “There’s only one bed!”

                Cecil and Rosa both stood, as they had been sitting on the bed during the discussion, and moved their packs in the process.

                “You should have the bed, Rydia,” Cecil told her.

                “Me?” Rydia asked, aghast. “But you are all guests!”

                “This is your home,” Rosa assured her. “It’s only right for you to have the bed.”

                Rydia looked both her friends in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

                “We’ve slept on rocks and uneven ground for days. Sleeping on a floor is a vast improvement,” Cecil told her.

                When the four of them began to unpack their bedrolls, Rydia felt a bit guilty. She found her own pack and began to unclasp her own bedroll.

                “What are you doing?” Rosa asked.

                “I’ve slept on that bed for ten years. I can sleep on the floor for a change,” she said firmly.

                Rosa and Cecil both shared a look and then Rosa laughed, and the sound of it filled the house. “Oh, Rydia,” she said warmly. “I’m so glad you’re with us.”

 

 

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                They awoke the next morning to a knock on the door. Shiva strode into the room without invitation, and everyone sat up groggily from where they had spent the night on the floor.

                “Good morning,” the Eidolon greeted them, carrying a tray of food to the table in the middle of the room.

                The smell of it made everyone sit up a little straighter.

                “I’ve brought breakfast, as it is only a customary offer one makes to guests.”

                “Guests?” Rydia asked, suddenly interested. “Does that mean we’ve been granted permission to stay and speak with the king and queen?”

                Shiva’s expression was pained. “Yes. And no. I wish to be more certain of your intentions before I allow you before the king and queen.”

                Rydia kneeled and then stood, walking to the table. “You want to ask questions?” she asked, tearing off a piece of bread and nibbling on it.

                “I do.”

                “We’ll answer whatever questions you wish to ask of us,” Cecil told the Eidolon, who looked back at him, seeming pleased by his response.

                “Very well,” she replied. “I’ll return in a while after you’ve had a chance to awaken some more.”

                Rydia watched Shiva leave and then returned her attention to the food on the table. There was fresh fruit, bread, a pitcher of what looked to be some kind of milk. She was amazed, as she always was, at how the Eidolons had such foods when they didn’t need to eat food for nourishment themselves.”

                “Are those—grapes?” Rosa asked, prying herself away from her bedroll to investigate the spread. “I haven’t seen fresh food for so long,” she said with longing.

                Rydia giggled. “You don’t have to just look at it, you can eat it,” she informed her friend, as Rosa hesitantly reached out to grasp a sprig of grapes and popped one of the small fruits into her mouth. The white mage rolled her eyes in ecstasy.

                “After so many days of hardtack and stale food, this is unbelievable,” Rosa said in amazement.

                Cecil joined her a few minutes later, savoring the fresh food on the table.

                Rydia took a moment to notice Edge and Kain still sitting on their bedrolls, unmoving; the former pinching the bridge of his nose.

                “Are you alright?” she asked Edge.

                He cast her an annoyed glance and waved her off. “Fine,” he said, distractedly.

                Rosa turned to look at him. “Headache?” she guessed.

                “I’m sure it’ll pass,” he muttered.

                “You should eat something,” the white mage suggested, taking an orange and tossing it to the prince who caught it in mid-air without even having to blink.

                “Kain, are you going to join us?” Rosa asked.

                Kain groaned something incoherent and stood, walking silently to the table. Rydia had observed that while Kain was already a man of few words, he was of even fewer words for the first few hours he was awake.

                Shiva, true to her word, gave them about an hour before she returned to the house. By then, everyone was mostly awake, though Edge still seemed to be suffering from his headache.

                “You said you would answer any questions that I had,” Shiva said, seating herself importantly on one of the chairs at the table.

                “I did,” Cecil answered.

                “But what about the rest of you?” she asked, looking at Edge and Kain.

                “We will,” Cecil said, answering for everyone.

                “Very well,” Shiva replied. “You are Cecil, and you must be Rosa,” Shiva said, looking at the couple.

                “We are,” Rosa answered.

                “The two of you are from Baron. And you,” Shiva said, nodding in Kain’s direction, “are also from Baron.”

                “Yes, the three of us are,” Rosa supplied.

                “Why is it that you hunt so ardently for Golbez and the Crystals he has seized?”

                Rosa looked at Cecil, who then looked at the Eidolon. “He wrongfully initiated a war that has now consumed the entire world,” Cecil said simply. “Whatever his plans for the Crystals, his blatant misuse of power and the loss of innocent lives must be stopped.”

                “You were a dark knight,” Shiva said. “You were a pawn to your king, and you even took part in the beginnings of the war. Did you not shed innocent blood yourself?”

                Cecil stared at his hands, but then resolutely lifted his eyes to Shiva’s face. “This quest is my atonement for those crimes,” he replied.

                Shiva nodded, and then turned to Rosa. “And you, a white mage. You accompany him on this journey? For what reasons?”

                Rosa blushed. “A knight must always have a white mage,” she answered a little nervously. “And besides, I knew that wherever Cecil’s duty led him, that I would follow.”

                “I admire your loyalty, but do you know what you’ve gotten yourself into?” Shiva asked.

                “I would not still be here, sitting within this room, if I didn’t already know what I had gotten myself into,” Rosa honestly replied. “I will go to whatever ends to see this madness ended.”

                “Now answer me this, dragoon of Baron,” Shiva said, turning her attention to Kain who was sitting off to a corner. “Not very long ago, you too were the enemy’s pawn. How are we to trust the intentions of one who doesn’t even know his own path?”

                Rydia glanced in Kain’s direction and she could have sworn she saw the man’s pale face blanche. It wasn’t often that she saw him without his fearsome helmet, but this was one of those times, and he seemed oddly exposed.

                “I was tired of being a pawn,” he said bitterly.

                “And yet you follow your friend because you believe it is easiest to follow the path already carved out for you?” she asked.

                “I follow because I believe it to be a just cause.”

                “Even when it is most dangerous?”

                “Yes. Even then.”

                Shiva’s gaze was intense, and Kain could only meet it for a moment before returning his own gaze to his hands.

                Rydia could sense the Eidolon making judgements, though it was an exchange that was beyond her. Finally, Shiva turned to Edge.

                She stared at the prince with an eyebrow raised, and he stared back at her in return.

                “Your part of the tale is unknown to me,” Shiva said measuredly, studying Edge as one studies an opponent.

                His gaze was unflinching, and Rydia was surprised. Most people couldn’t meet the gaze of the Eidolon with as much confidence as he was.

                “Where is it you come from?”

                “The kingdom of Eblan,” he answered.

                “And your trade? What stakes do you have in this quest of all-importance?”

                “I came to avenge the death of my parents—and the deaths of my people.”

                Shiva paused, as if remembering something. “A Son of Shadow,” she mused. “A gatherer of secrets, a dweller of nightfall; and often, a soldier of fortune.”

                Edge didn’t reply, but Shiva seemed to learn everything she wished just by looking into his eyes. “Interesting,” she said after a moment.

                “Well?” Rydia asked. “Do they have your permission to stay?”

                Shiva pursed her lips and looked at each of the companions in turn. “I wish to speak to the two of you some more,” she said to Cecil and Rosa. “The other two, the dragoon and the son of shadow, will wait here. They do not have my permission to wander the hallowed streets of the Feymarch.”

                Rydia was about to open her mouth in protest, but Shiva raised a hand to stall her. “Come. Let us continue this interview while we walk a bit,” she said, inviting Rydia, Cecil, and Rosa to the door.

                Shiva then turned back to Kain and Edge. “I don’t advise leaving this house unless you wish to incur the wrath of the Eidolons. Not accompanied by myself, you will be viewed as a deviant, and as such, a threat. Keep that in mind,” she said before leaving the room.

                Rydia looked at Edge over her shoulder and shrugged. He seemed annoyed but resigned, still pinching the bridge of his nose. Rydia would have cared more, were it not for her relief to be free of his uncanny stare for a while as she followed Shiva out the door. 

 

 

 

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                Shiva led them away from the small house and onto the main thoroughfares of the Feymarch. They passed several cloaked Eidolons on their way, but none of them paused to speak, even though Rydia was walking among the group.

                “It’s beautiful here,” Rosa said, looking around at all of the buildings.

                “I suppose it is beautiful in its own fashion,” Shiva replied.

                “The streams and terraces are gorgeous,” Rosa added, sweeping her gaze from side to side.

                “It’s the effect of the Mind Mirror,” Shiva explained. “The magic of this realm can be influenced by thoughts. The Feymarch is showing you what you wish to see.”

                “You mean it isn’t real?” Rosa asked, fascinated.

                “It is illusion, yes,” Shiva replied.

                “How is it that I also see streams and terraces?” Cecil asked.

                “It is rare for two people to share the same illusion, but it must be a real place you are imagining. A place of great importance to you both.”

                “It reminds me of Baron—as it used to be,” Rosa answered wistfully, still admiring the illusion.

                “What do you see, Rydia?” Cecil asked, turning to her.

                Rydia smiled. “I see a forest with a canopy the green of summer,” she told him.

                “A forest?” he asked.

                “Ramuh used to joke that it was my element—wood, that is. Ever since, I’ve always seen a forest here in the Feymarch.”

                “So even the sun is an illusion?” Rosa asked.

                “Even the sun,” Shiva confirmed.

                “This realm is truly astounding,” Cecil observed as they continued walking.

                “Tell me, where else have you traveled in the Underworld? It has been some time since Rydia has summoned any of us.”

                “In truth, we’ve been lost for several days. After leaving the Dwarves, we flew what we thought was west and discovered a cavern that was not, in fact, the cavern we were looking for.”

                “Another cavern?” Shiva asked.

                “The floors glowed green,” Rydia explained. “And there were faeries there who weren’t exactly welcoming.”

                “They had one of our former companions in their keeping. Do you have any idea who those creatures were?” Rosa asked.

                Shiva furrowed her brow. “Faeries,” she murmured. “The Sylves?”

                Rydia’s eyes both widened. “Those were the _Sylves_?” she sked. “That explains a lot, then!”

                “Rydia, you knew what those creatures were?” Rosa demanded. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

                “I didn’t put it together at the time,” Rydia said by way of apology. “They’re not dangerous,” she added.

                Shiva nodded. “They are a secretive community and wary of humans; but they are also very nurturing. If your friend is with them, they will care for him as one of their own.”

                “Is there a way to get him back?” Rosa inquired.

                “He will be released when he is ready to be released from their care. They are similar to healers in many regards, and protective of their wards. You were strangers with swords invading their sanctuary. It’s not surprising that they wished you gone,” Shiva explained.

                “I’m glad, then, knowing that he’s in good hands,” Rosa admitted with a relieved sigh.

                “Black tells me that you were headed to a place called the Sealed Cave. Is this true?” Shiva then asked.

                “The final Crystal Golbez is seeking resides there,” Cecil answered.

                “And you wish to acquire it before he does?”

                “Yes, that was the plan.”

                “And what would you do with it if you had it?”

                “Go on the run. Stay on the move and keep it beyond his reach.”

                Shiva hummed. “Your plan sounds incomplete. A man cannot run forever. Sooner or later, he will catch up to you, and he’ll have all of the Crystals in his grasp. What happens then?”

                “We have friends throughout the world who are making plans of their own. They will mount a last counter-attack against Golbez before we allow him to open whatever path he intends to open to the Moon.”

                Shiva sighed, and shook her long dark hair. “These are uncertain times to be sure.”

                They walked onward a ways before Shiva suddenly nodded in the direction of a crossroad, and Rydia saw Mist approaching them from the other path. She felt her heart quicken with anxiety. Mist’s expression was set, difficult to read, and Rydia waited until the Eidolon was closer before speaking.

                “How are you?” Rydia asked, keeping her tone light.

                Mist looked at her and the slightest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “I am well. And you?”

                “Very well,” Rydia answered.

                Mist then turned to Cecil and Rosa. “You must be Cecil,” she said, inclining her head in a curt bow.

                Cecil followed her example, as did Rosa.

                “I am,” he answered.

                “I am Mist,” she introduced herself. “The guardian of Rydia’s homeland, though you might know me better as the dragon you encountered those many months ago.”

                Cecil swallowed hard. “You are the Dragon of Mist.”

                “I am,” she replied.

                “I am sorry for the pain we caused you,” Cecil expressed with remorse clear on his face. “We were ignorant of Summoners and their ways when we sought passage through your cavern.”

                “Very much pain and inconvenience, indeed,” Mist answered. “And yet you have Rydia’s respect and trust. The very fact that you have been allowed into the streets of the Feymarch as Shiva’s guests says much about your character. I am not quite ready to forgive all, but I’m willing to make an exception of you and at least tolerate your company.”

                Cecil bowed deeply. “We are in your debt,” he told her.

                Mist nodded, and then turned to Shiva. “Where is it you’re taking them?” she inquired.

                “It’s a surprise,” Shiva answered with a smile. “You’re welcome to join us.”

                Rydia smiled, too. “Come with us, Mist,” she prodded. “It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to do any catching up.”

                Mist gave the girl a sly look. “Strange, it feels as though you never left.”

 

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                Shiva continued leading the group through the Feymarch, and this time Mist accompanied them.

                For a time, no one said a word, and Rydia eyed the Eidolons to her left and her human companions to her right.

                “Cecil, maybe you can ask what you asked me earlier,” Rydia suggested, hoping to break the ice.

                Cecil glanced at her, and then looked at Shiva. Shiva waited expectantly.

                “What is it you know about the crystals?” he finally asked.

                Shiva nodded gravely. “Ah, I wondered when you would ask me that question. The crystals’ beginnings were far before my own, unfortunately. I only know that it has been many thousands of years since they came to be, and many years since their power has waned to what it is now. There was a time when they shed far more light and gave more of their power than they do now. Magic like the kind found in this realm were once more common. Now there exist only pockets.”

                “So you don’t know what they were originally used for? Were they always on the earth or did they come from the moon?” Cecil asked.

                “Your guess is as good as mine. Although, I do recall an ancient race of humans in a time when the Eidolons were young. Their appearance and the appearance of the Crystals and the Tower of Babil were all concurrent.”

                “An ancient race of humans?” Rosa asked.

                “It’s been ages since I’ve seen them, and I don’t know what became of them. Whether they were your ancestors or a different race entirely, I don’t know.”          




                “I can’t imagine what Golbez is trying to achieve by opening a path to the moon,” Cecil said.

                “That is a mystery to us as well, but I sense an ancient power sleeping there. It’s been there since I can remember, like a second tide.”

                “Something is on the second moon, something he wants to reach,” Cecil repeated.

                “What Golbez wants and what exists may be two different things. The Twin Moon is more than one thing. It is a spiritual place, but perhaps there is something in particular that he wants there.”

                 Rydia looked at Shiva, then.  Again, she was amazed by how little they knew—of the Crystals, of the Tower of Babil, of the world itself. History had a way of shrouding itself at every turn.

                When they stopped walking, Rydia was surprised to see a place she hadn’t seen since just before she’d left the Feymarch. The tree that Leviathan and Asura had blessed, stood tall and magnificent in the light. Its leaves flickered silver and fluttered in a wind that Rydia could see but not sense.

                Everyone paused beneath the tree and gazed up at its branches.

“This tree is a symbol of our rebirth,” Shiva explained. “A renewed oath from Summoner to the Eidolons—a gift from our queen. We will defend this realm to our very ending. My question for you is, will you enter into this oath with us? To protect this realm? By doing so you are also taking full responsibility for whatever actions your other two companions take,” she elaborated. “Think hard before answering. It is not unknown to me that you have a former traitor in your midst, and it is my experience that former traitors are, more often than not, prone to repeat the same actions. Can he be trusted?”

                Cecil looked at Rosa and then at the great tree that rose above them to touch the dome of the sky. “So much of the world is in need of rebirth,” he said slowly. “To lose anyone, be they Eidolon or human, is a grave loss. We will do whatever is in our power to ensure that your people are kept from harm from any of ours.”

                “Very well. They are your responsibility now. I will speak to Asura and Leviathan on your behalf and they may choose whether or not to grant you an audience,” Shiva replied.

                “You will speak to them?” Rydia asked eagerly.

                “Yes, child, I will speak to them. I understand enough of your true purpose and the intentions of your friends to know that whatever reason you have for speaking to the king and queen must be important.”

                “Thank you,” Rydia said with relief.

                “What purpose do you have in speaking to them, Rydia?” Rosa inquired.

                “I want to ask for their help.”

                Rosa wrinkled her brow. “Their help—do you mean…”

                “It’s complicated. I can explain more later,” Rydia said. “But it is important, of that you can be certain.”

                Cecil and Rosa shared a look.

                “It’s alright,” Rydia assured them. “Everything will make more sense tomorrow,” she promised.

                “I think it’s time we began to head back,” Shiva suggested.

                Rydia nodded absently, and the five of them started their journey back. After a few turns, Rydia slowed to a stop. Shiva stopped with her. “Was there something else?” she asked.

                “There’s someplace I’d like to visit before going back,” she said. “I’d like to talk to Mist, if I could.”

                “You can take the others,” Mist added. “We will be back soon enough.”

                “Very well,” Shiva replied. “Come, then,” she prodded to Cecil and Rosa. “I will return you to your friends.”

 

 

 

 

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                “So it’s just us,” Edge mused, walking around the edges of the room.

                Kain sat down on the bed and crossed his arms. His helmet was resting at his side, and the dragoon’s lips were pursed together in a frown. Edge flicked his gaze in the other man’s direction from time to time. The man had a well-defined jaw, strong features, and sandy blonde hair that he’d never realized was quite so long. He was the kind of man you didn’t want to pick a fight with if you could help it. Broad shouldered, tall—hell of a heavy hitter. Edge had been wary of him from the beginning, but he couldn’t help but needle him. Leastways, Kain left himself wide open to verbal attacks, and Edge found this interesting—a man who kept himself physically impervious, and yet rose to the slightest barb. There was some kind of guilt to be exposed and whatever it was, it lay very close to the surface.

                “I can understand why they don’t want _me_ running amok in their city,” Edge opened, “But I can’t figure out why they’d lock you indoors, unless it’s because of that scowl of yours.”

                Kain threw a glare in Edge’s direction, and Edge noticed the red-rimmed eyes and the gauntness that accompanied many sleepless nights. Hell, he probably didn’t look much better either, and his headache from earlier still hadn’t gone away for that matter. Did he dare pick a fight with a fatigued giant? Of course he dared.

                “What did you do—brood at one of them?”

                “Do you enjoy talking just to hear yourself talk?” Kain asked bitterly.

                “All the time,” Edge shot back. “How else do you think I maintain perfect elocution?”

                Kain shook his head, and Edge could have sworn he heard the man mutter, “ass” under his breath. He smiled. At least the dragoon could call it like it was.

                Edge leaned against the table in the room, crossed his arms, and stared at the door, then at the dragoon. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

                “It wasn’t a proper question to begin with.”

                “Ah, so there’s a sense of humor buried somewhere in there,” Edge prodded. “Why don’t the Eidolons trust you?”

                Kain shrugged tiredly. “Does it matter?”

                Edge studied the dragoon for a moment, noting the dejection that clung to him like a damp cloak. “It matters to you,” he observed.

                Kain glanced up at him, blue eyes fierce. “It’s none of your business,” he snapped.

                Edge just stared back at him, unbothered. He was used to these kinds of encounters—he’d had them all the time with his father and _that_ man was implacable.

                “You were the other knight,” he said simply, thinking aloud.

                Kain pinned his gaze to the floor and it was all the confirmation Edge needed.

                “You were the other knight in Mist, one of the two sent from Baron.”

                “Who told you about Mist?” Kain asked, pained.

                “Who else?” Edge returned.

                Kain grimaced. “What we were asked to do—it was unconscionable. But I—I had an oath to fulfill. Does Rydia blame me for what happened?”

                “She left you out of her tale,” Edge assured him. “But she left enough clues. You weren’t there when she left with Cecil—when Cecil defected.”

                “No, I wasn’t.”

                “Where were you? Why would you return to the kingdom that had betrayed you?”

                “Some oaths are harder to break once made. You may not understand.”

                “Oh, believe me, I understand,” Edge retorted.

                Kain glanced up at him again, trying to assess whether or not Edge was playing with him. Edge kept his gaze level.

                “There was an earthquake,” Kain said after a moment. “I found myself on the wrong side.”

                “In more ways than one, I take it,” Edge added.

                Kain let out a sharp breath. “I was found unconscious and brought back to Baron. There was an inquisition.”

                “An inquisition?”

                “I was the last to accompany a traitor on a mission that failed. We had both failed, but only one of us fled.”

                “When Cecil left with Rydia,” Edge surmised.

                Kain nodded.    




                “And then what? Clearly, you escaped Baron, but I can’t imagine that they’d take kindly to two of their officers defecting so easily.”

                “It’s complicated,” Kain answered, unwilling to say anything else.

                Edge sighed, sensing that the other part of the tale would have to be ferreted out at a later time. “And because you were one of the two who attacked Mist and then returned to Baron, Rydia never forgave you. And neither did the Eidolons.”

                “Are you enjoying yourself?” Kain asked dourly.

                “Just trying to patch together some holes,” Edge replied with a shrug. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked any questions of your own.”

                “Questions of my own?” Kain asked, giving Edge a speculative look.

                Edge quirked his lips into a grin. “I can tell I’m exactly the opposite of what you expected of a ninja. Do explain, where did your previous notion of my kind come from, anyway?”

                “Just stories,” Kain answered quietly. “Stories from long ago.”

                Edge raised a brow. “That’s not illuminating at all. And here I was expecting a barrage of questions demanding to know why I don’t ascribe to all that you believed and thought you knew to be true.”

                “I admit, I’d thought your people to be a proud and taciturn lot. A people of few words and decisive action. All I’ve seen so far from you is a lot of talk and not much else.”

                Edge’s grin turned wicked. “Nicely put,” he said, but then added after a moments’ reflection, “If a little sparing in your lack of attention to details. I’ll have you know that I’ve been immensely useful in the past few days.”

                “At what exactly?”

                “Who got you into the Tower of Babil?” Edge pointed out. “And who found an airship just laying around? And let’s face it, the four of you were in sore need of some levity. My talents are vast.”

                Kain laughed—the man actually _laughed._ Edge was so shocked, he nearly fell off the table he was leaning against. “I have never before encountered someone so completely and utterly _in  love_  with themselves,” Kain admitted, still laughing. “It’s amazing that anyone in your own country can stand you, let alone respect you.”

                Edge let the affront wash past him, relieved that he was finally getting some honesty out of the man. “If I can be frank,” Edge said. “When you’ve lived your entire life in the shadow of laws and oaths and traditions, however you can find a way to free yourself, you do so.”

                This seemed to strike a chord with the dragoon and he stopped laughing, his expression becoming thoughtful. “Freedom?” he scoffed. “Isn’t it just an illusion?”

                Edge tilted his head to the side, considering. “Is it?” he asked and then sighed, staring around the small room. It seemed, to Edge, that it had shrunk in the last few hours, and his headache was beginning to build behind his eyes. To his chagrin, even the tomes he had been so curious about, his _one_ source of entertainment, had been removed. When it had been done, he wasn’t sure, but it had been done with skill worthy enough of his own kin and he found he was annoyed.

“Speaking of freedom,” he added. “It’s about time I saw more of this place than just these four walls,” he said, pacing along the room’s perimeter.

                “I wouldn’t bother,” Kain cautioned idly. “The Eidolons are not beings to trifle with. I won’t come save you should you find yourself dealing with more than you can handle.”

                “I wouldn’t ask you to save me anyway,” Edge grumbled. “What do I look like to you, a princess?”

                “You’re certainly vain enough,” Kain volleyed back.

                Edge simply smiled as he inspected the room for other possible exits. When he approached the back corner of the room, he paused. There was a pile of rolled up rugs and poles, and after moving a few of them aside, Edge saw a small hatch near the floor, a half-door.

                “Huh,” he muttered, and pried more of the rugs away until the door was fully accessible. He jiggled the latch and the door swung inward, revealing a small chamber with another door at the other side.

                “Don’t, Edge,” Kain warned.

                “Oh, ye of little curiosity,” Edge remarked, stepping into the small chamber and fiddling with the latch of the second door. When it opened, he poked his head into a small alley behind the house. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a look around?” he called back to Kain.

                “You’re digging your own grave, prince,” Kain retorted.

                “Suit yourself,” Edge answered, squeezing through and shutting the doors behind him. When he emerged on the other side, he found himself wedged in the alleyway. A stone wall faced him, and once he’d stood and could see over the wall, he saw foothills spread out before him with mountains beyond those. He blinked. Had this landscape been here all along and he just hadn’t noticed? He rested both hands on top of the wall, peering over, and when his fingertips brushed just past the far edge of the stone, the landscape rippled like still water disturbed. He retracted his hands, startled. The Feymarch was clearly filled with more mysteries than he realized.

                He inched his way to the side of the small home, glancing around the corner toward the main road. There were a few cloaked figures ambling to and fro but none of them were looking in his direction. He took that to be a positive sign, as he tried to figure out how he was going to be able to walk much farther without being detected. Using ninjutsu and concealing one’s footsteps was easy enough around humans, but around magical beings? Edge had never tried such a feat before and was admittedly a little eager to try. He dashed across the space between his current hiding place and the next building over, hiding the sound of his footfalls with the skill years of training afforded him.

                He peered around the corner of the second building, weaving in and out of barrels and crates that had been stacked in the alley between the building and the peculiar stone wall. There was a considerable distance between where he was hiding and the intersection he longed to reach, and he took a moment to take a measure of his surroundings. He was about to take a chance and dash to his desired destination, when he spied a bundle of dark brown cloth laying on one of the barrels near him. Curious, he picked it up and unfolded it. A long brown hooded cloak fell to his feet, and two silver brows rose as a plan formed. Could it really be that easy?

                Edge stepped onto the main thoroughfare in plain sight, delighted by the convenience of his disguise. Most of the Eidolons on the roads wore cloaks of varying shapes and colors and none of them paid him any attention. He strode among them; shoulders squared, and tried to act as normally as possible. His next question as he navigated the plank roads—where had Rydia gone off to with Cecil and Rosa?

                He had walked for a while before he saw Cecil and Rosa returning to the house with the Eidolon Shiva. Edge continued walking normally, but he couldn’t help but glance at them from beneath his hood. They passed each other by, and Edge released a slow exhale of relief that Shiva hadn’t detected him. Though, he couldn’t help but wonder where Rydia was. Was she still wandering the Feymarch? Visiting friends perhaps? Curiously, he continued through the Feymarch’s streets until he caught sight of her. She was walking with a woman with snowy white hair and gray eyes. The Eidolon was beautiful in her own way; slightly built, but she walked with the dignity of a grander creature. It was her hidden identity that made Edge regard her with caution. The Eidolons were seldom what they seemed in their human guises. He didn’t have long to wonder which among Rydia’s Eidolons the woman was before he nearly lost the two of them.

                He followed them down a long road until Rydia and the Eidolon passed through a high wall into a section of the city he couldn’t see. Edge clung to the shadows and followed them, making sure not to draw attention to himself as he snuck after them through the gap in the wall.

                When he emerged on the other side--he found himself in a place he least expected.

 

 

 

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Rydia and Mist parted ways with Cecil and Rosa mid-way through the city. Shiva accompanied her friends back to the house they had stayed in, and now she was left alone with Mist.

                Rydia decided to meander to one of her favorite places—the garden where she often went to think.

                “I apologize for what I said earlier,” Mist offered after a few minutes’ pause. “It was unjust of me.”

                Rydia looked at the Eidolon walking beside her. “I don’t blame you,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t have tried to force you to speak with one of the people who had caused you so much pain.”

                “He truly seems a good man,” Mist said, smiling. “I can see why you are loyal to him and his cause.”

                Rydia smiled shyly back. “I trust him with my life,” she said.

                They left the plank streets behind and stepped into the garden with its pond and rocks. Rydia ran forward, twirling around with her arms outstretched.  

                “I’ve missed this place so much!” she declared, approaching the pond and bending low to dip her fingers below the surface of the water.

                Mist shook her head. “You have the entire world as your playground, and yet this of all places, is where you still long to be,” she said with a small laugh.

                Rydia fished around in the water, watching how the light flickered on her hands below the rippled surface. “Because this is where my family is,” she answered truthfully.

                Mist walked to a large boulder and sat down on it, folding her arms. “And this is where we’ll always be,” she added a little sadly.

                Rydia looked over at the Eidolon, but her blue eyes never really reached Mist’s face. “I know that this is only temporary,” she admitted. “I know that you won’t let me stay here, but…” she trailed off, trying to think of how to proceed. “I couldn’t leave things as they were. I didn’t want my two worlds to always be apart.”

                “So you flew over our little island and decided to take a chance—to introduce your human friends to the rest of us, regardless of the consequences.”

                Rydia made a thoughtful expression. “I don’t like leaving things undone,” she admitted.

                “It was very bold of you,” Mist pointed out.

Rydia laughed suddenly. “I’m sorry—I just can’t stop thinking of Shiva’s face when she saw me,” she said, still giggling.

                Mist tried to give her an admonishing look, but the gesture proved ultimately futile. The Eidolon’s face also broke into a smile.

                “I can only imagine,” she admitted. “Still, you should have warned us! Someone might have met you at the portal, had we known.”

                “And shooed us out again?” Rydia complained.

                “Maybe not _immediately,”_ Mist conceded. “But at least we would have been able to welcome _you_ properly before all of this.”

                Rydia nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t send word. I was afraid you would react badly.”

                “I suppose we did,” Mist agreed.

                They both fell into companionable silence until Mist looked at Rydia with a question on her mind.

                “Rydia, what is it you plan to do once the war is over?” she asked.

The question took Rydia by surprise. “What makes you think we’ll succeed?” she asked.

Mist tilted her head with a knowing smile. “Always have something to hope for,” she said.

“I suppose—” Rydia began, but never finished.

A voice from nearby in the garden startled both her and Mist.

“Is this one of yours?” Black announced from behind.

Both Rydia and Mist turned to look, alarmed at the intrusion.  Rydia stood, outraged, when she saw Edge stand up from behind a flowering shrub, and lower the hood of a long brown cloak in the process.

“You!” she shouted, taking a few steps forward. “What on _earth_ are you doing here?” she demanded.

Edge raised his hands in surrender, a helpless grin on his face.

“You were told to wait,” Mist accused, her gray eyes narrowing.

“Waiting was never one of my stronger suits,” Edge admitted, walking toward them with Black at his side, glaring up at him.

                “What business have you  here?” Mist insisted, and Rydia could tell the Eidolon was making up her mind about whether or not she wanted to harm the man.

Edge flicked his gaze in Rydia’s direction. “To be honest, I was curious to see what Rydia’s stories were all about. I never imagined there was a society such as this tucked away in the world.”

“Aren’t you from an isolated society yourself?” Rydia scoffed.

                “Different kind of society,” Edge elaborated.

                Rydia narrowed her eyes at this, her hands resolutely on her hips. “I can’t believe you’d do something so _stupid,”_ she hissed.

                “I think you’ve seen enough,” Mist declared. “Black, escort him back.”

                Edge looked at the Eidolon near his feet, disinterested. “Well, at least it was an eye-opening, if short, adventure,” he said.

                Rydia made a disgusted sound and whipped around, not bothering to see him escorted away.

                Mist regarded the entire scene with a curious eye, and it was only after Black and Edge had gone that she picked up the threads of their previous conversation.

                “I’m surprised he made it this far,” she mused.

Rydia groaned and rolled her eyes. “He’s always two steps behind me,” she complained. “Always following me around.”

                Mist then raised a silver brow and smiled. “Tell me, Rydia, if you had someone waiting for you, would you be more inclined to stay in the Upperworld?”

                “I have Cecil and Rosa and Yang and Edward; but I still don’t know—this is home.”

                “No, Rydia. I mean, if you found love?”

                “Love?”

                “A mate.”

                Rydia looked thunderstruck. “Why on earth would you say a thing like that?”

                “Just a question,” Mist answered not-so-innocently. “So this companion of yours—you’ve never mentioned him.”

                “What’s to mention? I don’t know him particularly well, and what I do know, I don’t like. He’s obnoxious.”

                Mist had a peculiar glint in her eye, but she didn’t elaborate whatever was on her mind.

                Rydia couldn’t help but wonder if she’d missed something again. There had been far too many knowing looks given in her direction in the past few days.

                “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” she asked, a little heatedly.

                I’m sure you’ll figure it out on your own,” Mist replied with a smile.

 

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Edge found his escort to be a little insulting. It was bad enough he’d been caught, but now he was being taken for a walk by a cat—clearly, he had some work to do to regain his dignity. They had walked about halfway, when the Eidolon decided to begin an interrogation. Edge’s headache wasn’t having any of it.

                “Very interesting,” Black observed.

                “What is?” Edge asked.

                “I’ve met another like you recently.”

                Edge held his tongue just long enough to think the Eidolon’s words through properly without resorting to an automatic retort. He had a few ideas of what Black could be referring to, but he suspected Black meant his magic.

                “Really,” he said, “And where was this?”

                “The Tower of Babil.”

                Now Edge’s interest was piqued. “That can’t be,” he said.

                “I can recognize another born to magic as easily as I can breathe. Your magic, in particular, is most interesting.”

                Edge felt the urge to lie come on as a reflex. There were secrets among the Shinobi of Eblan. Secrets that ran deep, and some secrets that were never to be revealed; specifically, about ninjutsu. It was a magic different from mages and summoners. It was unique to each caster because it was _born_ to each caster. Edge had never before encountered a being that _knew_ and _understood_ the nature of his magic.

                “It’s entirely a part of you. Fire, if I’m not mistaken. Or something similar to fire, more wild perhaps. It courses through your veins and affects your senses. I imagine it’s what’s causing your discomfort.”

                Now Edge was annoyed. What did this Eidolon presume to know? He chose to ignore the Eidolon’s accurate accounting of himself and focused instead on the other part of his tale.

                “How could you have met another like myself? We are all accounted for, or dead.”

                “Perhaps it was time you checked your records again,” Black suggested.

                Edge thought furiously, who it was that could have been inside the tower beside himself—a rogue perhaps?

                “She was gifted, extremely gifted,” Black went on. “I haven’t met a natural born caster of her caliber in many years.”

                Edge’s thoughts swam—there were many gifted shinobi born to this generation, but there were only three, maybe four, whom he would consider prodigies. One was dead; one, he despised; one hailed from another clan; himself of course, and perhaps another member of his own clan.

                Among the living, two were kunoichi, but why any of them would be in the tower—or how they managed to gain entry before he had…

                “She,” Edge said carefully. “What did she look like?”

                “As a human, I have no idea, though her skill as a shape shifter showed much mastery.”

                Bells of alarm went off in Edge’s head. _It  wasn’t  possible…_ “How recently?” he asked, his tone still guarded.

                ”A few weeks, I think. It’s hard to recall with the time lapse between your realm and ours. She escaped on an airship from the tower with my assistance, but whether she was re-captured or reached safety, I’m unsure.”

                “Why were you, an Eidolon, sent to aid her if you were not summoned?”

                “We were in her debt,” Black explained. “She served as an informant to us of the enemy’s movements and when it was clear she herself was in danger, we chose to assist her. They must have really valued her to have kept her locked away as she was—took hours to find her.”

                “Her name, did she ever tell you what it was?” Edge asked, his pulse thrumming in his ears.

                “She never said.”

                Edge sighed deeply, looking around at the Feymarch but not really seeing it. There was only one person he knew who could shape shift, but that person couldn’t possibly be alive. If they were, how had it happened? Why? For what purpose—experimentation? What collateral damage would come of this? And yet…the idea that the person in question was the very same person he was thinking of gave him some reason to hope. Perhaps he would find her himself someday, alive and well, as the Eidolon had.

                “Was she someone you knew?” Black asked, disturbed by Edge’s long silence.

                “Knew, yes,” Edge answered quietly.

                Suddenly realizing where they were, Edge noticed a large burly man standing in front of the door to the house they had spent the night. He had a scowling face and wild red hair with arms the size of clubs crossed against his chest. Edge eyed the guardian warily, and then looked down at Black, who trotted forward.

                “Give it a rest, Ifrit,” the small Eidolon complained. “This one’s with me,” he explained, waiting for the large Eidolon to open the door.

                As Edge slowly made to enter, Black gave him a knowing look. “Rest assured, we’ll be watching the back door as well.”

                Edge stepped through the door, somewhat abashed, but also amused that he had fooled the Eidolons at least a little.

                Kain was still sitting on the bed when he entered, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes closed.

                “I’m surprised you’re still alive,” he said without opening his eyes.

                Edge grinned, a gesture lost on the other man. “Worth every moment,” he said lightly.

                “Where have you been?” Cecil asked angrily, and Edge remembered that he had already passed the couple on their return to the house.

                “Getting to know our captors,” he replied.

                “Do you have any idea what trouble we went to to gain the Eidolons’ trust?” Cecil asked. “You could have just cost us whatever good will they had toward us,” he snapped.

                “Somehow, I think their minds are already made up no matter what I would do,” Edge answered dryly. “It’s Rydia’s request that they’re honoring, not ours.”

                “Did you see Rydia?” Rosa asked.

                “She was with an Eidolon I didn’t recognize. Why, what’s going on?”

                “We may be given an audience with the king and queen,” Cecil explained. “That is, of course, if Shiva hasn’t decided against it after your actions.”

                Edge’s brows rose. “Well,” he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

                The annoyed looks from his companions spoke volumes. This was clearly a high stakes game, and he had potentially thrown a kink into the plan. Still, he didn’t regret his little excursion.

                Edge had only been back for a short time before the door opened again. Everyone expected Shiva to come storming in with bad news, and for them to be hastily escorted out of the Feymarch. Instead, it was Rydia who returned alone with a resolute look on her face.

                “Well?” Rosa asked.

                Rydia first glared at Edge, and then looked at Rosa with a tight grin. “We’re going to see the king and queen,” she replied.

                Edge looked at the young summoner and thought he saw lines of strain on her face. What on earth were they about to do that had her both eager and concerned? What was _she_  about to do?

 


	20. A Queen's Blessing

Rosa was standing in the center of the room with her slim, pale arms folded against her chest. Her expression was grim, her lips pursed. Rydia found it hard to meet her friend’s eye, and stepped around her.

                “You said you would explain later,” Rosa pointed out, refusing to be avoided. “It’s later.”

                Rydia sighed and sat down at the table, spreading her hands out across the tabletop. “We’re going before Leviathan and Asura,” she repeated.

                “To what end, Rydia? You look eager but uncertain, and it’s worrying me,” Rosa complained, sitting down in an adjacent chair and taking one of Rydia’s hands in her own. Rosa’s hands felt cold atop her own.  “Tell us—what is it that you brought us here to do?”

                Rydia was keenly aware of Cecil and Edge slowly approaching the table, also waiting for an explanation.

                “Golbez is more powerful than we realized,” Rydia explained hesitantly, glancing at each of her friends. “He has so many allies. I thought it would be best to seek more allies of our own.”

                “More allies?” Cecil asked.

                “You asked Astrid in Baron to do something for you, didn’t you?” she asked. “To gather whoever was still alive to help us?”

                “To find whatever friends we had left, yes,” Cecil confirmed.

                “Black told us that a summoner must earn the true name of an Eidolon before being able to summon them. Rydia, is this what you’re planning to do—place yourself in danger?” Rosa asked.

                “It’s a test of wills,” Rydia hedged.

                “And what exactly comprises a test of wills?” Rosa persisted.

                Rydia took a deep breath. “It’s a challenge.”

                “A battle?” Cecil asked.

                Rydia smiled weakly up at him. “Of sorts.”

                “You’re going to challenge the Lord of All Waters and the queen of the Feymarch?” Edge balked.

                “It is the only way to gain their trust and permission,” Rydia explained. “We _have_ to challenge them. It is a test of strength and will.”

                “ _We_? _We_ have to challenge Leviathan?” Cecil asked, in disbelief.

                Rydia nodded resolutely. “The test is mostly for myself, but as my companions, you must also be proven worthy of the task.”

                “And you neglected to tell us about this until just now,” Cecil said, suddenly annoyed.

                “I didn’t because I thought it was necessary, and because we _need_ them, Cecil,” Rydia argued. “Who knows what will happen if we fail to find the last Crystal? Who knows what will happen if Golbez opens a path to the moon?”

                “We have to battle the Lord of all Waters,” Edge repeated, beginning to pace.

                “He’s actually much nicer than he sounds,” Rydia added, glancing in the prince’s direction.

                “Rydia, he’s been responsible for the sinking of ships and the deaths of countless sailors,” Rosa protested. “How could he possibly be the kind soul you’ve described?”

“Who the Eidolons are in the Upperworld is not who they are in the Feymarch. He’s nothing like an evil sea dragon.”

                “But that’s who we’ll be fighting—the sea dragon. We will be fighting the king of the deep,” Cecil said. “Rydia, what if he kills us?”

                Rydia looked away. “Asura would never let that happen.”

                “To you, maybe,” Edge argued. “But you volunteered us for a battle that we didn’t agree to, a battle that could potentially kill _us_ , and you didn’t even bat an eyelash.”

                “How is this any different from half of the things we’ve done lately?” Rydia asked, instead, looking up at him intently. “We’ve climbed towers and battled monsters without knowing if we would be dead in the morning. The Eidolons won’t kill us,” she added.

                “ _You_ are valuable, but not the rest of us,” Rosa pointed out, her lips pointed downward in a frown. “What if they’re not feeling as generous toward us?”

                “It will be alright,” Rydia insisted. “I’ve challenged all of my Eidolons personally—how could the five of us fail?”

                “You had to battle all of your Eidolons alone?” Rosa asked incredulously.

                “It is the way of things,” Rydia said simply.

                The five of them fell silent for a time, each absorbed by the enormity of Rydia’s news.

                The opening of the door behind them, made each of them jump and stare at the door with wide eyes.

                Shiva appeared before them, the long dark rope of her braided hair draped over her shoulder down to her knees. She wore an unreadable expression, but her entire demeanor spoke of forthcoming peril.

                “You’re to come with me,” she informed them, throwing the door wide with one hand, her fingers barely alighting on its surface.

                Ifrit was standing like a living bulwark behind the lithe ice summon; and the five humans followed Shiva out the door and into the light of the unnatural sun like hesitant children. Ifrit had not abandoned his disguise and still appeared to Rydia and the others as a giant of a man with meaty fists and arms that could easily crush a man’s skull. Cecil, Rosa, and Kain all blanched in his presence, afraid to step much farther beyond the threshold of the house. Rydia glanced peculiarly at each of the Eidolons, wondering at their behavior. There was an expectant sort of atmosphere settling over these proceedings, and it was starting to make Rydia more nervous than before. It was as if the Eidolons were holding their breath—hoping, but not daring to hope—at the same time. Hoping for what, exactly?

               Shiva walked as a dancer, each step thoughtfully placed and executed as she briskly led them down the street. While they walked, she began delivering instructions, which Rydia and the others were expected to assimilate without repetition. There were more Eidolons out and about on this day than the one before it, and Rydia smiled at a few whom she recognized. She received several raised brows, at least from those brave enough to reveal their forms to the small band of humans on their journey to the king and queen. The rest observed the procession from the safety of their hoods.

               “When you enter the throne room, speak only when spoken to,” Shiva continued, and Rydia had to pinch herself for not giving the Eidolon her complete attention. “Do not make eye contact unless permitted, and if you are asked to do something, no matter how strange—you must do it.”

                This last, elicited looks of surprise from all but Rydia who had grown accustomed to the ways of the Eidolons over the years.

                “Rydia, I’m not so sure—“ Rosa tried to dissuade her friend, but Rydia would not be gainsaid.

                “We need them, Rosa. _I_ need them.”

                They approached the library, and Halcyon* stood near the doors, which were already opened before the party. He dipped his well preened head of golden feathers as Rydia passed by him and all of a sudden she had the notion of herself as a princess returning to a land she’d long departed. It made her feel unexpectedly important, but she soon discarded the fantasy to plunge after Shiva into the darkened interior of the hallowed halls that held the knowledge of Summoners and Eidolons alike.

                Books and scrolls filled the rooms from floor to ceiling just as before, and the scent of the lamps pervaded the space. They descended the two of the library’s staircases to arrive at the antechamber to the throne room. Shiva bade them all to wait and went ahead without them, entering the throne room by leave of the guards who stood at the doors.

                After several minutes, she returned, and gestured the party of humans forward. Rydia stood foremost, as this was her home, and led the others into the adjacent room.

                She did not recall the throne room being this large, and she felt just as overwhelmed by the space as by the person waiting within it. As it was, Asura seated on her throne was resplendent. The queen was wearing garments dyed a deep teal with stars embroidered along the hem and sleeves in threads of gold and silver. In the light of the room, the stars glittered in swells and waves as if the celestial bodies truly inhabited her garments.

                Rydia led the others in a deep bow, and when she straightened, the queen was studying her with a shrewd gaze and a wise smile.

                “So the fated heroes have come at last to seek the favor of the ancient ones,” she announced with a light, startlingly demure, voice. “I’ve been expecting you.”

                It had not escaped Rydia’s notice that there was one important person absent from the room, and the look on her face must have betrayed her question, because the moment she’d opened her mouth to ask it, the queen raised a graceful hand to silence her, shaking her head.

                “The rules have changed, Little One,” the queen informed her. “No one speaks to Leviathan until they’ve first spoken to me. What is it you wish to ask of me?”

                “Your Majesty, I need your wisdom and your aide.”

                “So I thought.”

                “Your Majesty, I’ve seen what Golbez has done, and what he will continue to do. I can’t protect the last crystal, and the people of this world, without your help.”

                Asura smiled in her human guise, her long dark hair coiled into braids that had been elegantly looped and pinned atop her head like some fine work of art.

                “It will not be easy for you,” she warned, her eyes like agates. “Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

                Rydia inhaled deliberately through her nose and exhaled just as slowly. “Yes, your majesty, I am sure.”

                “And you know what is required, as the Code demands?”

                “Yes.”

                The queen stood, the folds of her gown draping to the floor and fluttering in the presence of some invisible force. And then, all at once, the queen discarded her human disguise, appearing before the five of them in her true form. Her teal garments slipped from her shoulders revealing a tawny vest and arm bands of gold, while her skirts pooled at her waist. She was tall and fearsome and her three faces presided over them like judges weighing their deeds against their worth.

                Rydia had always known Asura was an Eidolon of many faces, but had never really known what that meant until now. Not only did the queen have more than one face, but she had more than one pair of arms as well. It was as if three persons inhabited one body; separate, but inseparable. The first of Asura’s faces was pale and serene with arms folded in her lap as if in prayer. The second was of dark complexion and wore a perpetual grin, a pike balanced in her hands; while the third had brows poised in anger and a sneer that craved violence, two curved scimitars in each of her hands.

                Rydia found this transformation startling and felt her hair stand on end.

                “Very well, daughter of Arya; child of the Feymarch. I accept your challenge,” the queen decreed from the mouth of the serene, her voice booming throughout the throne room as Rydia imagined it might in a grander hall.

                The presence of Asura had changed beyond her appearance. Rydia sensed it as a pressure in the air. A tremendous power—a force that felt as though it were a wall. The queen had made no move, but her magic felt as threatening as any sword.

                The five companions fanned out across the room from the queen; and all the while, Rydia’s mind was racing, trying to recall anything of use about the queen and her magic. There was something specific she was trying to remember, that one elusive memory. The queen had no element, that much she knew; and as such, she had no discernible weakness. How were they to defeat her?  Rydia certainly didn’t want to take arms against her if she could help it.

                “Rydia, how do we proceed?” Cecil hissed at her from the left. She was loathe to break eye contact with the queen lest she miss something, but she spared him a quick, helpless glance. His hand was hovering over the hilt of his sword, her hesitation the only thing preventing him from drawing it. Rosa and Kain were also eyeing her, poised for readiness.

                Rydia had no strategy to offer them, as she was still trying to ascertain one herself. She studied the queen for a few minutes more, the magic in the room building to near unbearable levels.

                The queen closed her eyes, spreading her arms wide around her like someone wading out into the tide, buoying themselves against the waves. A blue glow emanated from her fingertips and around the honeycombed ground at her feet. Rydia held her breath as Asura brought her magic to bear, moving her hands in intricate signs as the blue glow covered her from head to foot.

                “White magic,” Rosa murmured, letting out a breath she’d also been holding.

                White? Rydia wondered. The queen’s magic  didn’t look like any white magic Rydia had ever seen, but she trusted Rosa’s assessment.

                “Rydia, how are we supposed to defeat her?” Cecil asked again. “When you said a test of wills, I wasn’t sure you meant it this literally.”

                She slowly shook her head, thinking.

                “Nothing yields nothing,” the queen reminded her with a faraway voice, shifting her stance.

                “I’m with Cecil,” Edge muttered at her from the right. “I’m all for a staring contest, but this is a little extreme.”

                Rydia speared him with a glare, and in that moment, became aware of a change in the queen’s manner. It happened in the space of a blink, a blur in Rydia’s vision.

The space where the queen had been standing was no longer occupied. Instead, she had appeared at Rydia’s right, and Rydia felt herself tense involuntarily out of surprise. It was fortunate for the ninja that he was as quick on his feet as he was with his words, because he had drawn his blades the instant the queen had set her sights on him. Now, he was dodging and sidestepping the queen’s relentless attack, while Rydia hopped out of the path of their blades.

The queen wielded the two curved scimitars against him, each sweeping the air in deadly arcs; a dance of death all directed at the ninja prince. Edge, two swords in hand, had joined the queen in her dance; stepping, sidestepping, rolling, and redirecting the strokes of her blades. It was all in the careful footwork and the rhythmic clanging of their swords, that Rydia found she could not peel her eyes away. Asura would catch his strokes and counter, trying to ruin his center of balance, and just as quickly, Edge would adjust his footwork, redirecting her momentum.

But then—with one unexpected lunge, the queen swept just below one of his own blades, slicing the tendon above his knee. The wound wept blood, and Edge stumbled, unable to support his weight.

                Before the queen could level another of her attacks and take advantage of his peril, Edge managed to pull his feet beneath him at a crouch and repel another of her blades with force. The brunt of her attack knocked him backwards with a grimace, and as the queen was reversing her momentum, Edge dropped one of his own swords, making signs with the fingers of his left hand. Rydia had seen Edge cast his magic often enough, that she knew what he was doing before she felt him summon his magic to the fore. She had been envious for a few days now, the speed at which he could cast his magic, and he remained true to form. He took on a blue cast much the same as the queen, the glow of magic upon him. All of this happened within moments, and just as quickly as he’d stumbled to the ground, Edge had released his magic against the queen. A wall of water materialized out of the air between himself and the queen, and the roar of the ocean pealed against the throne room walls as the torrent of water erupted in Asura’s direction, both inundating and repelling her. The flood deposited her on the other side of the throne room where she lay sprawled on the floor before angrily pushing herself to her feet, wet hair clinging to her face.

                Rydia wished she could be half as swift. Nonetheless, what she had just witnessed had been quite a spectacle, and she looked over at the ninja with concern, noting that his wounded knee was preventing him from standing. She flicked her gaze back to the queen when she heard the serene face of the queen begin chanting, her hands moving in deft signs. She was once again enveloped in the blue glow of her magic, the dampness from Edge’s flood being erased from her as if it had never happened.  

                “I will not make this easy for you,” one of her other voices jeered at them. “I promised you that. You will fight or you will die.”

                Cecil had put his hesitation aside, and he held his sword steady in his hand.

                Rydia watched him, saw the look he shared with Kain, and how the two of them adjusted their grips on their weapons. Whatever they were about to do, it would be in tandem.

                Rosa was chanting softly, and Rydia noticed Edge return to her periphery, on his feet once more.

                “I see you understand, now,” the queen said with a snarl, striding toward them. She was wearing the face with the perpetual grin, and had the pike leveled in their direction. The disturbing look in her dark eyes was not a side of the queen that Rydia had known existed, and she wondered who the queen would choose as her next victim.

                Cecil lunged before the queen could get close enough for Rydia to find out, and Kain was a second behind in joining him. Cecil’s sword struck Asura’s pike, knocking it aside, and Kain caught the queen’s scimitars with his axe when the queen spun, and attempted a swipe at his legs. The queen’s defenses were tight, her movements quick and sinuous, and with four arms engaged in combat against the two men, the knights were having difficulty finding an opening to exploit. 

                As Rydia watched, a decades’ worth of memories were tearing loose of their tethers. As much as she respected her queen, she would not stand idly by while her friends were in danger. Rydia began to chant and felt the Feymarch augmenting her magic like a lens warps light. First Bio, then Blizzaga—and then a quick dodge as one of the queen’s attacks strayed dangerously close to her perch.

                She began again, words streaming from her lips, a ceaseless surge of syntax beckoning the crystals’ magic to herself. She had forgotten how the Feymarch enhanced the quickness of her casting, made it easier to command her magic exactly as she required. It produced a sort of high, an adrenaline rush. She then cast Thundaga—dodged again—and was aware of Cecil taking a blow from one of Asura’s blades, a jagged slice through the seam of his gauntlet. Thundaga erupted from the throne room ceiling with all the fury of a storm at high summer. Cecil and Kain jumped back, but the queen took the magical onslaught in stride, channeling the lightning from head to toe and shaking out her arms as if it had been nothing but a slight tingle and not a column of white flame. Nonetheless, the queen’s serene face began chanting, bathing herself with white magic yet again.

                Dismayed, but not thwarted, the men renewed their attacks, and Rydia observed that Edge had joined them as well. The battle carried on this way for several minutes while Rydia began casting once more. Firaga—Blizzaga, and both in succession. Neither of them did much to deter the queen, and in fact, her speed had increased while Cecil and Kain’s had slackened. They were tiring.

                Kain had been so preoccupied with the queen’s swords, and with his own movements coming in slow jerks, that he was not prepared when the queen lunged and the vicious two-pronged end of the pike drove between the plates of his armor between pauldron and breastplate. Asura yanked the pike out of his shoulder to block Cecil’s next attack and the dragoon sank to the floor—Edge and Cecil carrying on without him.     




                It wasn’t long before Kain had returned to his feet, but Rosa’s voice was hoarse from casting, and Rydia knew this battle was nearing its end. She was sure, at this rate, that the end wouldn’t be to their liking. Edge was bleeding now from a gash on his forehead, and Cecil’s sword arm was straying to his side more often than it was raised to strike the queen. The men were trying to conserve their energy, attacking only when provoked, and dodging when necessary.

                “A paladin should know—victory is not always won with swords,” the menacing face of the queen jeered at Cecil; lunging at him with both scimitars, which he repelled with his shield, faltering backwards.

                Rydia studied the queen, wondering at her words. _Victory  is  not  always  won  with  swords_ , but magic hadn’t helped either. How could they possibly defeat an opponent whose healing came on the heels of their injury? If there was a way to reflect— _Reflect!_ It had been so long since Rydia had cast white magic of her own, that she had completely forgotten the extent of Rosa’s capabilities. She cursed her own slowness of mind as she rushed to Rosa’s side, waiting until the white mage had cast Cura and opened her eyes, before explaining her plan.

                Rosa’s eyes widened in disbelief; she stared at the queen and then back at Rydia again with the most curious expression on her face. “How could I have forgotten?” she balked, and then closed her eyes again to begin the incantation for the spell so integral to Rydia’s plan.

                Cecil and Kain were both burdened by their own armor in their current state of fatigue, and even Edge, who had speed enough to match the queen, was stumbling from wounds he had received from her blades. Rydia wished Rosa would cast faster, that she would hurry up. The men wouldn’t be able to last much longer.

                Rosa spoke the final invocation, and this time it was _her_ white magic, not the queen’s, that enveloped Asura. It coalesced into the form of a convex shield, and then a glistening pale mirror of green. In it, Rydia could see herself and Rosa, but through it, she could also see the queen. Would her plan work?

                The queen disengaged herself from the swords of Cecil and Edge, and took several strides backwards, her weapons lowering.

                Everyone tensed, and Cecil raised his shield, expecting danger.

                Instead, Asura’s serene face began chanting, her eyes closed in contentedness. She invoked her magic and it reflected off of the mirror Rosa had cast. The queen’s magic selected Kain at random, healing each of his wounds at once. The queen cast again, and this time it was Cecil who reaped the benefit. The queen carried on this way until each of the companions was sound and whole again.

                “At last,” Asura sighed, resignedly. “You have figured it out.”

                The men lowered their weapons and each turned to look at Rydia.

                Rydia looked back at them equally perplexed.

                “Your majesty, does this mean—”

                Asura nodded with a small smile, and gestured each of them to put away their weapons. “There is no further need of those,” she told them. “You have proven to me all that I needed to ascertain.”

                “But—” Rydia began in protest until Asura silenced her with a gesture.

                “It was your strategy that ended this battle, Rydia my child. Strength of arm and of magic are one thing, but a sound mind makes all the difference,” Asura informed her. “These are good companions you have found, both strong and true. Allow me, too, to lend my strength to your cause. Summon me whenever you have need.”

                Rydia was so stunned she nearly forgot to bow, and when she did it was in a jerk and pull fashion. “Your Majesty, thank you,” she managed to say.

                The queen’s smile broadened. “Surely, there is more for us to speak on, but not today.”

                “Your Majesty, what about Leviathan?” Rydia inquired.

                “You require rest,” Asura told her. “To challenge both he and I on the same day is far too impetuous. Recover your strength and return tomorrow. Then, we shall have words.”

                “Your Majesty—again—thank you,” Rydia said.

                “It is my pleasure to assist those worthy of my aide, and it has been far too long since any such persons have tried,” she answered. “Now, go. Return tomorrow, and we will continue our conversation.”

                The five humans bowed and retreated to the throne room doors, each of them perplexed. Shiva awaited them on the other side, looking anxious, even more so when she saw the looks on their faces.

                “Well?” she asked, once the doors had been closed again. She looked each of them up and down. “You’re all still alive—does this mean you have bested the queen?”

                Rydia smiled and Shiva gazed at her with some intensity. The Eidolon then looked to Cecil for confirmation and when she found it, a look of utter amazement took its place on her face.

                “Unbelievable,” she murmured and turned swiftly on her heel to lead them up the library stairs. Her robes fluttered behind her at the speed she was walking, and every now and again she would shake her head and glance over her shoulder at the five humans.

                The instant they exited the library’s doors, a small crowd of Eidolons was waiting for them.

                “Ramuh!” Rydia shrieked out with delight, rushing forward to clasp the Eidolon around the waist.

                He chuckled heartily and returned her embrace. “Rydia, my child. Here, I’ve been hearing stories of you having returned, and I finally have a chance to see you. And Black’s just told me—the queen! Imagine that!” he said, holding her at arm’s length to look at her anew. “Have you grown recently?” he asked, squinting at her.

                Rydia slid a hand through her green hair and giggled nervously. “It’s possible,” she said. “Ramuh, the queen has agreed to help.”

                “ _Has_ she?”

                Rydia leaned back and eyed Ramuh shrewdly. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

                His laugh was deep and warm. “Not surprised, so to speak. Merely interested.”

                “Rydia, you really did it, didn’t you?” Black asked, appearing from behind Ramuh’s robes.

                “I’m sure there will be more to tell after tomorrow when the king has made his decision,” Mist’s calm voice intervened. “Give the humans some room, please.”

                “ _Thank you_ ,” Shiva said exasperatedly, pulling Rydia by the shoulder. “Leave the five of you alone for more than a minute, and the whole of the Feymarch will be here demanding a re-telling.”

                Rydia furrowed her brow, but her confused smile never left her lips. “Why is everyone so amazed by what we’ve just done?” she asked.

                As Shiva led them back to the house, she offered one simple explanation: “Because you’ve done what’s never been done before.”

                They entered the house they’d lodged in the night before, and found food waiting for them on the table. Ifrit’s stony face was absent this time around, and the room had been organized so that there were mattresses on the floor instead of the traveling mats they had been using for weeks.

                “I don’t understand,” Rosa said all of a sudden, looking around the room. “We’ve only been gone a few hours. I couldn’t sleep now—not by a longshot.”

                Ramuh entered the house behind them. “Rest and sleep are not always one and the same,” he informed them. “Please, sit.”

                When the five of them had reluctantly done so, Ramuh took a stool and did the same. Shiva remained by the door leaning against the frame.

                “Now, then. I imagine you have some questions.”

                “Who are you?” Cecil asked. “You are a new face to us.”

                “Pardon me,” the elderly Eidolon apologized with a grand gesture. “My name is Ramuh. And you must be Cecil, the man I’ve heard so much about. Is it true that you and your small band of friends and warriors alike have managed to come so far on your own?”

                “Not on our own,” Cecil replied. “We had help along the way. Rydia, with the help of you, the Eidolons, has been a savior to us more times than I can count.”

                Ramuh smiled and winked at Rydia. “And now you have the help of the queen of the Feymarch. A feat not easily accomplished, I’d imagine. Was she severe upon you?”

                Rydia glanced at her companions and saw everyone share a quick, but grave look. “She did not make it easy for us, no,” Rydia answered.

                “That’s an understatement,” Edge grumbled under his breath, until Rydia kicked him swiftly under the table.

                “Tomorrow you face the king of the Feymarch, and that is a challenge you must prepare for with your spirit as well as your body. The queen wishes to test the merit of a person’s intellect, but the king probes much deeper. You must be willing and committed to your quest if he will agree to lend his aid to the same cause. He will not for anything less than absolute and unwavering determination. Do you think you can do such a thing?”

                “We have no choice,” Rydia replied. “I won’t leave here until he has agreed to help.”

                Ramuh chuckled. “Rydia, my dear, you were nothing if not determined, but what of your friends? Will their hearts’ intent line up with your own?”

                Rydia caught Cecil’s eye, and nodded. “We are together in this, Ramuh. There’s no turning back for us.”

                “Then you’ve already won half the battle,” Ramuh assured her. “As for the rest—you’ll need all the respite tonight can grant you. If you found the queen’s challenge difficult, the king will be less amicable.”

                Rydia raised both of her brows, and a feeling of dread settled over her. “He’ll be more difficult a challenge?” she asked.

                “He isn’t considered the Lord of All Waters for no reason, my dear.”

                “Did you come here to frighten us or encourage us, Ramuh?” Rydia inquired, a little perplexed.

                “Oh!” he exclaimed, patting his knee. “I never meant to discourage you! Merely to prepare you for what is to come. You can’t set out to face a challenge with half-hearted intentions!”

                Shiva let out a strangled groan. “I’m sure the five of you will perform admirably,” she informed the rest of them. “Ramuh, you asked to be here because you wanted to hear of Rydia’s travels. Why don’t you ask her about that, instead of scaring the humans?”

                “I’d rather enjoy that,” Ramuh reflected, peering at Rydia and the others. “In fact, I’d enjoy to hear a bit more about the people in Rydia’s company. We don’t have many visitors, you see.”

                Rydia glanced at everyone a little apprehensively. “Is that alright?” she asked.

                Cecil and Rosa merely returned her glance with mystified expressions. Clearly, all that had transpired in the last two days was still somewhere beyond their comprehension. “Of—of course,” Cecil said, when he realized Ramuh was eagerly awaiting his reply.

                “Well, then!” Ramuh said happily, “How’s about you tell me what happened among the dwarves? That was where you rushed off to when last we saw you, Rydia, was it not?”

                Rydia smiled, and so began the recounting of her adventures from the last several weeks with Cecil and the others. The telling lasted most of the afternoon, and somewhere in the middle of the day, more Eidolons had entered the small house to hear the tales of Rydia and her companions. Questions abounded until Rydia was at a complete loss for words. Who did they think Golbez really was? What were the Crystals really being obtained for? Did humans really fly the skies in silly wooden contraptions?

                Cecil, Rosa, and occasionally Edge, took their turns in the telling, and Ramuh listened to all of it enraptured, especially where it concerned their most recent battle with the queen.

                At last, when evening had fallen over the Feymarch and everyone truly was exhausted, Shiva shooed everyone out, and bade her leave.

                “I’ll come for you in the morning,” she told them with a wan smile. “Prepare yourselves.”

                Rydia had managed to ward off her dread of the challenge with Leviathan for the entire day until that moment. In truth, it was a battle that worried her more than a little; in fact, quite a lot. Now, only Ramuh remained, and Rosa was rubbing her eyes, having trouble keeping them open. Cecil was rubbing her shoulders in the attempt to keep her awake out of politeness, but even Edge, whose headache had seemingly returned, was looking like sleep was not far off.

                “Ramuh, I think it’s time we _did_ rest,” Rydia told him, her voice feeling hoarse from all of the storytelling.

                “Of course, of course,” he said, absentmindedly. Rydia was staring meaningfully at the door behind him, but Ramuh failed to comprehend.

                “Ramuh,” she tried again. “Tomorrow, could we talk? I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open,” she explained, trying for as much delicacy as possible.

                “I have an idea,” he said instead, and Rydia sensed the patience of everyone in the room begin to teeter dangerously close to protest.

                “Yes?” she was almost afraid to ask.

                “It doesn’t require your strictest attention,” he assured them. “In fact, it may help ease your worries.”

                Ramuh gestured to the mattresses on the floor, and no one had to ask twice. Ramuh walked to the table in the center of the room once everyone had settled, and lowered the lamp to a faint glow.

                “I have a tale to share with you,” he began with a smooth and melodious voice. “It is a tale of heroes long gone, and of an impossible victory—one that relied solely on the bonds between those who undertook a great and perilous journey. It reminds me, I think, of the journey the five of you have found yourselves upon…”

                Rydia listened for a few minutes, but soon found herself drifting farther and farther away from the story and away from the room. Images were streaming through her mind as she wandered into the endless plains of dreaming, but they were not the worried dreams of someone about to enter into battle with a being out of legend. Rather, Rydia fell asleep to the sound of Ramuh’s rich voice, and all that entered her thoughts was an all-encompassing and soothing peace. 


	21. Here There be Monsters

 

                They awoke the next morning to find another meal laid out before them on the table. Ramuh had left sometime during the middle of the night, and Rydia felt calm despite what they were about to do. His tale had worked some wonder on her unconscious mind, and rather than tense, she felt a strange sense of peace.

                They ate their breakfast and sorted through their equipment in silence, until a knock brought their attention to the door. It was Shiva who entered, her eyes immediately searching the room for Rydia’s.

                “Are you ready?” She asked, fingers still gripping the latch. Her blue robes were slightly different from the day before, more elegant perhaps, and her hair was braided to perfection. Rydia snorted. It was as if this was to be some elaborate display—the humans versus the Eidolon king, and Shiva wanted to be sure she had dressed for the event. 

                Rydia nodded with a nervous smile—knowing she would never truly be ready. How could one prepare to do battle with the Lord of all Waters? There was only the insane sort of courage that had bolstered them through this all along, and on that, she relied. As she stood, she slipped her whip into the belt at her waist, the familiar weight of its coil against her hip.

                “Leviathan?” Cecil simply asked, and Rydia nodded again, her eyes fixed on Shiva.

                The Eidolon resolutely steered them into the road and Rydia heard Edge and Rosa release slow breaths as they followed her out the door.

 

This time when they entered the throne room, Asura was absent. The king awaited them and his long beard trailed to his waist like moss. He wore a royal mantel of heather atop robes the color of the ocean, from deepest caverns to the spray of the waves.

                Rydia led them all in a bow to the king of the Feymarch. He was a grand and impressive figure, whose appearance bespoke a certain timelessness--ancient and unfathomable.

He looked the humans over with a well trained eye, already gauging them. “Rydia, child,” he said with his rich and rumbling voice. “You are the first and only to best my Lady Queen. But strength of arm alone will aid you little in the face of true evil. Without the strength of will to keep it aligned on the proper course, all the power in the world amounts to nothing. My spirit has been tempered and honed in the forge of the ages. Will you face me, knowing what it means to do so?”

“Yes, your majesty. We will,” Rydia answered, feeling her nerves rising.

The king nodded and spread forth his arms. Water bubbled out of the floor as though from a spring, and within minutes, the honey combed ground was flooded with several inches of water. Soon several inches had become several feet and the five of them were standing in water up to their knees.

The king underwent a transformation before them. His features were overwhelmed by a searing blue glow until his human form was all but forgotten, and in its place, writhed the sea serpent he truly was. His sinuous body reflected mottled purples and blues; his fins a translucent green, spider-webbed with veins. From head to tail he took up a significant portion of the room, much of his body roiling and visible above the water with a series of barbs and spines helping to propel him in the shallow water.

As with Asura, Rydia had never fully seen the king in his true form—the events of the whirlpool in the sea and the subsequent capsizing of the ship had left far too many disjointed images and sensations in her young mind for her to recall an accurate picture. To see him now, she felt terror. True terror. The kind you feel when you find that some legends are real.

She had ever known the king to be warm and compassionate, a steady presence and pillar of strength in the Feymarch. But in her ears all she heard was a deafening roar—the bellow of a dragon that brought to mind the crashing of waves against land. The king’s presence reminded her of just how small she truly was. Nothing but a single drop in a much larger ocean.

“To battle the Lord of the Seas, you must first appreciate what it is I am,” she heard Leviathan’s voice boom at her. She blinked, and found his glassy blue eyes fixed upon her. She was having trouble keeping her legs from shaking, and she swallowed hard. “I am the being your ancestors feared,” she heard him say, but she wasn’t certain if the words were real and tangible or if she’d heard them in her mind. “I know the deepest craters of the earth by name, and I have explored the jagged coastlines of each rock that floats within its oceans. You face me by my true nature—with terror so deep within your veins that you cannot fight it, not even a little. For it is right to fear me. Just as it is right to fear, in some regard, what is unknown to you. But if you cannot turn that fear to action, neither my help nor any others, will save you from yourselves. This is your test.”

His head rose up so that it almost touched the ceiling of the throne room, and his fins fanned out about his face as a fearsome crown. 

There was to be no trickery or mind games with this challenge, and Rydia knew it immediately, just as she knew the king was no tame creature by any degree. This was to be a test of commitment, of bravery, and of arms.

Cecil did not look to her on this occasion for advice, but had his sword already drawn. Kain, who stood beside him, had chosen his spear for this battle rather than his axe. The two men were already taking positions before the king, struggling to proceed in the knee-high water.

Rydia slipped her whip from her belt and its loop sloshed in the water. There was little protecting herself and Rosa from Leviathan’s wrath with the men spread out as far as they were, and the leather of her whip felt heavy in her hand.  

Rydia recalled her experiences in the water caverns with Cecil when her adventures had first begun. She _knew_ which spell to cast against her sovereign, but to do so, would kill them all.

Rosa slung her bow from her shoulder, seeming to understand Rydia’s predicament.

“Magic won’t work, will it?” she asked, sparing Rydia a knowing glance.

Rydia shook her head. “Not if I want to fry all of us,” she replied.

“Well then,” Rosa said, drawing an arrow from her quiver and nocking it to a string. “It’s been a while since I’ve taken arms.”

“Looks like it’s just the two of us,” Edge called out to the mage, waving a kunai carelessly in the air. Rosa gave him one of her patented _looks_ before shaking her head.

It took Rydia a moment to realize what Edge had meant, but then she noticed the water continuing to rise. Cecil and Kain were weighed down by their armor, and Kain was having particular difficulty negotiating his spear with water now reaching his elbows.  Only Edge and Rosa with their ranged weapons maintained any level of mobility.

The king seemed pleased by their predicament and hissed. His mighty tail plummeted toward them like an avalanche—relentless and unavoidable.

                The ensuing wave threw them all from their feet and plunged them into the water so that their backs struck the floor only for them to float to the surface again like pieces of driftwood. Rydia snorted water out of her nose, the burning sting of brine in her sinuses and throat.

                Rosa spit water from her mouth as she struggled to stay afloat and hold her bow. Eventually, she gave up on trying to do both, and hooked her bow around her shoulder, beginning to chant while sputtering water. Rydia was aware of currents in the water around her indicative of Leviathan preparing another attack, but before she felt the suffocation of his serpentine body coiling around them, she sensed herself being lifted from the water—tugged.

                She heard Rosa sigh with relief at her completed spell, and realized the mage must have cast Float to rescue them from Leviathan’s domain. The water had continued to rise beneath them, and now there was several feet of deep water, consuming half of the throne room’s height. Rydia could see Leviathan beneath the surface—circling, calculating—and then his tail whipped above, sweeping toward Cecil first, and then at Kain, who defended himself with the shaft of his spear before stumbling backwards. She and Rosa hopped out of the way, and she heard several distinct, rhythmic sloshing noises as shuriken struck the water—Edge.

                Rosa had slung her bow from her shoulder once more and was aiming into the water, but several jets of water prevented her from taking an accurate shot and she dodged, being showered with brine in the process. Leviathan was making himself a difficult target as his long serpentine form slid through the water beneath them.

Without warning, the king suddenly erupted from the water, encircling Cecil in an inescapable coil of fins and scales, and pulling the paladin beneath the water in a shower of bubbles. With a shocked gasp, Rosa brought her bow to bear, taking aim through the undulating water. She released one arrow and the water blushed red. An unearthly roar escaped the waves and Cecil floated again to the surface, coughing and sputtering.

                The king had followed Cecil to the surface, his maw open and snarling. Rydia held her whip in her hand, prepared to release its end with one good snap and deter the king from pulling her beneath the water as well, but Leviathan’s attitude then changed. His eyes took on an unearthly glow and Rydia felt the air around her become suddenly frigid, her hair freezing in the erratic patterns it had been spun into by the tumult. She knew which spell this was even before she felt the cold chill of ice on her skin. Blizzaga stole her breath, and she fell to a crouch—gasping—still suspended by the magic of Rosa’s Float spell. Her skin glowed pink and red from sudden frost burns, and she couldn’t seem to shake the cold from her body, as she clung to an invisible floor, shivering.

                She stared numbly where Leviathan’s fearsome head loomed above the water but felt she couldn’t move even if she wanted to. The cold had sapped her of her energy…

                A bright explosion and a surge of heat snapped her to attention. Leviathan sped away, startled, and Rydia felt the residual chill flee her body. The feeling returned to her extremities and she locked eyes on Edge whose hands were arranged in some intricate sign, no doubt the source of the magic she had just witnessed.

                The expression on his face was fierce, focused, but as if he sensed her eyes on him, he glanced at her briefly. He nodded in the direction of the king and she took his meaning. She could cast magic so long as none of them were touching the water.

                She began to chant and once again wove the words to Thundaga to aid her. No sooner had the bolt of lightning erupted from the ceiling and sizzled into the water in spectacular fashion, did Leviathan writhe and plunge deeper into the pool. A moment later, an enormous wave surged from the opposite end of the room. There were few words to do it justice—it was a sheer wall of water, a deep sea swell, and it spanned the full height of the room. Rydia’s heart dropped to her feet as she steeled herself against the inevitable.  There was no way to avoid Leviathan’s attack, and Rydia and the others were inundated as they were pulled backwards and under the water once more to be spun and turned around.

                Rydia had the wind knocked out of her when her back struck the floor this second time. Dazed, and her lungs aching for air, she nevertheless felt herself rising to the surface—until the magic of Float unexpectedly wore off. She floundered in deep water, pushing herself upwards, and once her head had surfaced and she had gulped down a mouthful of air, she turned to see what had happened. Rosa was nowhere to be seen. She spun more frantically in the water to find the others, and saw Edge a short distance away, and even Kain, who was struggling to keep his head above water.

                Where were Cecil and Rosa?

                More jets of water exploded in her direction, burning her eyes, and she paddled away from them, annoyed by her lack of mobility. She swam to her left and all of a sudden felt the water moving around her. Much to her relief, it was Cecil, not Leviathan, who appeared next to her, hoisting an unconscious Rosa with him. Her golden hair was plastered to her face and her head lolled to the side, lifeless. Her lips were blue from cold.

                Their one healer, the one person who could keep them above water—without her, the rest of them had little chance of escaping this test alive. Rydia wanted to help Cecil in some way, but her pack had become twisted and tangled and she couldn’t search through it and swim simultaneously. To discourage her further, Leviathan’s tail split the water between them and she was swept away, flailing and kicking to stay upright.

                Cecil was chanting—practically shouting—as he held Rosa’s head above water. He was chanting the Raise incantation, but it was not a spell to be cast quickly. Leviathan was circling again, getting ready to strike, and with a snap and a spout of water, Kain vanished. Rydia knew that Cecil was short on time, and if Rosa could not be revived…

                “Rydia!” she heard Edge yell at her. Her eyes madly searched for him, and she noticed he was closer than expected amidst the riotous waves.

                “Rosa—” she cried out, unable to think of what else to say.

                “I know,” he replied. “You and I have to keep Leviathan distracted.”

                Her brows angled into an expression of disbelief. “How?”

                He pointed in the direction opposite of their companions. “We need to spread out.”

                “And _then_ what?” she yelped, spitting out mouthfuls of water.

                “You know spells other than Thundaga!” he shot back, frustrated by her indecision.

                Of course she did, but would any of them be any use?

                “Distraction, Rydia!” he told her helplessly, trying not to be pulled under by the waves. “All they need is a distraction!”

                Her arms and legs burned from treading water for so long, but she fought the current and swam after him.

                She hurriedly checked over her shoulder and saw that Kain had re-surfaced, vapor issuing from under his helmet as he exhaled nearly as much water as air. When she returned her eyes to her destination, she saw Edge do something she didn’t expect. With great credit to his acrobatic skills, he had propelled himself above the water and had used that same speed to skip above the water like a stone. His footfalls made light splashes on its surface as he sprinted farther across the room.

                Rydia paddled after him, mystified. Just how many peculiar skills did he have in his repertoire?

                She eventually found herself behind the king, and Kain was doing a respectable job of keeping Leviathan’s attention fixed upon himself. He was using his spear as a harpoon to keep the sea serpent at bay.

                 Cecil was still keeping Rosa afloat, and Rydia could tell that the strain of treading water and chanting was taking its toll.

                Rydia began chanting as well. Not calling upon the elements, not calling upon the most effective spells she knew for just such an instance. Instead, she began twining together filaments of magic into something that would at least slow Leviathan down. She called upon pestilence and disease—the foul spell Bio. The king had surfaced for a moment and had just opened his mouth to spew frigid water at Kain, but Rydia seized the moment from him. She completed her incantation and the magic she had summoned coated his wet skin with toxic slime. The king bellowed and roared, his head snapping to and fro, as water streamed from his maw in furious torrents. His ancient eyes fixed upon Rydia, but Edge wasn’t about to be shown up either. He threw dart after dart, each blade embedding into the serpent’s neck, blood trickling in rivulets into the water.

                Leviathan changed course, sliding through the water like an eel, his jaws skimming the water’s surface while he hunted for his prey. Rydia swam out of the way, being propelled further away by the rush of water that accompanied Leviathan’s movements. The king was pursuing the ninja.

                Rydia watched with morbid fascination while Edge continued sprinting over the water, hopping and changing direction almost as much as the king. But he couldn’t keep running indefinitely.

                Edge had led Leviathan on a merry chase, leading him to a corner of the room farthest from Cecil and the others, but then the king lost his patience. Using his tremendous tail, he swept a wave of water at the ninja prince, throwing him off his feet as he plunged underwater not to re-emerge. Rydia was caught by an edge of the same wave, and the swirling undertow as it ricocheted off the throne room wall, pulled her under and spun her around.

In that moment, when she couldn’t tell up from down, Rydia felt herself being hoisted upwards.

                _Rosa!_

                Float carried her to the surface and beyond—and once more Rydia hung suspended several feet above the water. Even Edge, unconscious though he was, had been rescued from the pool. She wasted no time.

                She had never double-cast before, but the Feymarch buoyed her and allowed her to believe that she could ask anything of her magic. Thundara and then Thundaga—lightning illuminated the room; sizzling, arcing, snaking across the air in brilliant flashes of white that stung the eyes to look upon. Leviathan did his best to avoid the bolts, but the water itself began to steam from the heat caused by Rydia’s spells. She became relentless, casting until the room reeked of ozone, and until her companions had had a chance to rejoin each other. She couldn’t hear anyone over the sound of her own voice as she wove her words together.

                Leviathan countered with ice and with arctic air, but Rosa replied with magic of her own. Spells were flung in every direction, as Rosa’s white magic offered them protection and healing; and Edge, conscious again, cast his own magic, keeping the king preoccupied.

                Even Kain had eventually regained his composure and leapt into the air to strike Leviathan from above, and for a moment, Rydia lost track of him as another storm of lightning erupted at her words.

                Kain’s spear dove into the water like a fisherman snaring a fish on the hook, and more blood stained the water.

                Leviathan surged forward, showering them with brine. He leapt and dove, waves lapping at their feet. Cecil was pulled below, and then Edge was struck by the king’s tail, thrown backwards several yards with a whip-crack of fins and barbs.

                Despite wounding the king, their attacks had done little to stop him altogether, and Rydia was frantically trying to figure out how they were going to accomplish this.

After each of Leviathan’s attacks, the five of them made an effort to group together; or rather, they had been herded together by the king’s movements. Looking around them, a plan formed in Rydia’s mind.

                “Edge, can you command ice?” she hissed at him.

                His offended manner told her everything she needed to know.

                “Good,” she said, closing her eyes once more.

                She beckoned the crystals for cold, the biting chill of winter, and Blizzaga poured from her lips like ice water. She directed it not at Leviathan himself, but at the water—a wide, frigid arc that froze the water into a wall. And then she began to cast again, calling upon the arctic winds until her one wall had become a barrier. Opposite, she heard the sounds of ice cracking and popping, and had confidence that Edge had followed her example, completing the circle around them.

                When she opened her eyes she admired their handiwork—a complete ring of solid water hedging in Leviathan. He was forced to stay precisely where he was, a fish trapped in a puddle. The five humans hovered above him, but with less room to move, the king had less chance of mounting an effective attack. That didn’t make him harmless, however, and Rydia began the next stage of her plan as she heard the first cracks in the ice.

                She grabbed Edge by the arm, and he whirled to look at her a little furiously. She imagined there were several words he would like to tell her for getting them involved in this mess in the first place; but instead, he was waiting for her, brows poised expectantly.

                “When he comes above water—together,” she said breathlessly.

                His eyes searched hers for a moment and then he nodded in understanding.

                Rydia had no idea how he could have understood her with so little explanation, she barely understood herself; but she doubted the king would give them another chance as this. Her plan had to work.

                Leviathan explored the edges of his frozen cage until finally resorting to a more direct approach. He began to swim faster through the water, churning up a whirlpool, and Rydia knew it was now or never. She began to chant once more, her eyes open. She had to time her spell perfectly, and she waited until Leviathan’s nose had just broken the water to hasten her incantation. The king lunged at the five of them, breaking the water like glass. Rydia released one last Blizzaga spell at that precise moment. Beside her, Edge cast magic of his own; and together, the two ice magicks spiraled across Leviathan’s sinuous body, freezing every water droplet and every inch of the wave enveloping him until the king was trapped—a living sculpture.

                Cecil glanced at Rydia, startled, and cautiously approached the sea serpent with his sword raised. Leviathan growled, halting the paladin, and the sound became a deep sort of hum. The vibration of the sound splintered and then shattered the ice with terrible pops and cracks, and Rydia felt a surge of disappointment as Leviathan shook himself free of his prison. She prepared herself for another attack as Leviathan began to glow wholly and entirely, a searing blue-white. The brilliance of the flash left her momentarily blinded, and even time seemed to slow down, but rather than an attack, she felt herself succumbing to gravity.

                Float had worn off, and where she expected her feet to meet water, she continued falling until she landed on the floor of the throne room. Her vision began to return in streaks, and when she looked around, she noticed that all of the water had vacated the room. Her companions were all standing on damp ground, and Leviathan the sea serpent was gone—replaced by his human form.

                Rydia struggled to regain her breath, at a loss for what had just happened.

The king folded his arms, studying each of them.

“Did we fail?” Rydia asked, afraid to hear his answer.

The king shook his head. “No, my child. Indeed, you bear the light.”

“Then—the challenge. We succeeded?” she asked, baffled.

“I grant you my power, the power of Leviathan, the Eidolon King, to summon at your command.”

“But—why—we barely had an advantage over you,” Rydia went on, fishing for an explanation.

“A single tree will splinter in a mighty wind, but a tree among its fellows will be caught before the ground,” he said carefully, looking at each of them. “You took shelter in the company of your allies, little one. Together you are strong, and you proved to me that you understood this in the end.”

“Your Majesty—” Rydia stammered out, too shocked to say much else, as she hastily bowed. As she rose, she heard soft clapping. Behind the king, Asura had entered, her calm face smiling.

“Well done, humans,” she said. 

“My Queen,” Rydia said, bowing again.

“Rydia, child, you have grown so much in your time away,” the queen told her. “To have bested the both of us, truly you are ready for what awaits you. And the rest of you—I am pleased that my ward has companions brave enough to stand beside her when she challenges beings out of legend. It takes a great deal of nerve to support your allies so completely.

Rydia glanced at Cecil and saw the exhaustion in his face. Everyone looked worse for wear, and she felt entirely responsible.

“Cecil—everyone,” she said. “Thank you for coming here with me, despite the strangeness of my request.”

Cecil offered her a tired smile. “For all its strangeness, I’m glad we were able to see your world, Rydia, and to meet in person, the king and queen of this land.”

When Rydia returned her gaze to Leviathan and Asura, the two of them were smiling as though they shared some private amusement.

“What a tale this will make,” Leviathan announced. “Of men who would be kings and of women who wield power they have only just begun to understand. Surely, there will be tomes written on the subject—the five humans who were granted the favor of the Feymarch.”

                “But don’t become overconfident,” Asura warned. “This journey you’re on will be the making of you. Some of you may rise, and others fall. We have seen this over the centuries—men and women coming to power, claiming thrones…making wars. It takes the truly wise to learn from all those things the trappings of greatness.”

                “There is one who sleeps in Baron, yet,” the king added. “A man whose passion, for both his life and for the kingdom he left leaderless, has bound him to its service forevermore. Seek him out if you require more answers. In the meantime, put an end to this imposter to the world stage—this Golbez. I have seen many humans be born and die, but none quite so cunning as this. It’s almost as if he is no mere man at all, but a puppet to some grander scheme. You may yet find a greater force at work here. Something we’ve felt stirring for some time. Go with our blessing. Find your answers and may their seeking not be your ending.”

                “Your Majesties, thank you,” Rydia said, as she led everyone in a deep bow.

                “Stay here for one more evening, and in the morning we will see you off properly. Rest and recover your strength, and we will have directions to the place you are seeking in the morning,” the queen assured them.

                The door opened behind them and Shiva entered.

                “This way, humans,” she said, beckoning them to the door.

                They followed her out of the throne room for a second time. This time when they exited the library, the entirety of the Feymarch had come to see them.

                Curious eyes peered at them from all corners, and several familiar faces crowded in, asking questions.

                Rydia looked helplessly at her friends, and then at the Eidolons. She heard questions about Rosa’s hair—as if having hair the color of gold was more strange than hair that was green. Dragoons weren’t _really_ part dragon, were they? Were there still two moons in the sky? The Tower of Babil, did it truly hold the crystals, or were they secretly being hidden somewhere else?

               By the time they had stepped through the door, Shiva and presumably a few others, had effectively gotten rid of their followers.




                “You’ll have to excuse them,” Shiva explained. “With Asura and now Leviathan, the five of you have become something of a legend yourselves. You are no longer confined to this house and are welcome to explore the Feymarch if you wish. And before I leave, is there anything you require—food or drink?”

                “The queen mentioned directions to our next destination,” Cecil pointed out.

                Shiva nodded. “Yes, I believe someone has been off finding those for you. Anything else?”

                “I think we’re content with what we have here, thank you,” Rosa said, looking up at the Eidolon from where she had seated herself at the table. “I need some time to sort through everything,” she added.

                “Of course,” Shiva replied, nodding. “I’ll see to it that you’re not disturbed.”

                Rydia sat down near Rosa, feeling the drain that accompanied a great rush of emotion. She was sure everyone else was feeling the same.

                “Food will be brought to you later this evening. In the meanwhile, I suggest you rest,” Shiva then told them as she stepped out the door.

                “Thank you for all you’ve done, Shiva,” Rydia told her.

                “I’ve done nothing, really,” the Eidolon answered with a small smile as she left the house.

                “So—” Edge fished, “That was it, then? Battle the king, almost die in the process, and then in a sudden fit of whimsy, he grants you his power?”

                Rydia frowned at him. “Challenges are all different,” she answered.

                “Rydia, that was risky,” Cecil sighed, rubbing Rosa’s shoulders.

                Rydia looked at the other woman and noticed her face was ash white. She had been through quite a lot this morning, and was no doubt remembering her close brush with death.

                “I’m sorry, Rosa,” she offered.

                “I’m fine, Rydia,” Rosa answered with a sigh, flitting her gaze up to Rydia’s. “How did you know he wouldn’t have finished us off?”

                Rydia shrugged. “I didn’t. But the purpose of the test wasn’t to kill us.”

                “Just to almost kill us,” Kain muttered.

                “We’re all alive,” Rydia pointed out. “And with the king and queen on our sides, Golbez will be in for quite a world of pain.”

                “None of this will mean a thing if we can’t find the Sealed Cave and its crystal before he does,” Cecil replied.

                “We’ll find it,” Rydia answered. “We will.”

                “I’m curious about what Leviathan said,” Rosa mentioned. “About there being one who sleeps yet in Baron. You don’t think—”

                Cecil shook his head, but Rosa had caught Kain’s attention. “His Majesty?” the dragoon asked. “Is that even possible?”

                “ _Your_ king?” Edge asked incredulously. “I thought he was dead.”

                Rosa frowned at the prince. “Please mind your words while speaking of King Odin—the true king, not the imposter.”

                “One who sleeps,” Kain mused. “What did he mean by that? Is he suggesting that Odin has become more than a man?”

                “Some humans became Eidolons long ago,” Rydia supplied.

                “Humans turning into Eidolons?” Rosa gasped. “I would be thrilled to learn if our king still lives, but to become an immortal? How is that possible in an this present age?”

                Rydia shrugged. “Perhaps we should visit Baron and find out,” she suggested.

                Cecil and Rosa looked at her for a moment and then settled into a quiet discussion with Kain about the matter. Their conversation was intense and had an earnest ring to it about returning to Baron, possible passages in the basement where they could search for clues. After several minutes, Rydia discovered that she had no place in their conversation, and chose to find her own place for quiet contemplation. She left her friends to their musings and returned to the streets of the Feymarch, not knowing that she was being followed.

                She spoke to a few Eidolons on her walk—congratulations were exchanged and wishes of good fortune for the rest of her journey—but Rydia had a specific place in mind. Her feet brought her to the garden where she had always felt the most like herself.

                She had just sat down on the large stone by the pond when a smooth voice startled her from her perch.

                “This is the second time in two days that you’ve come here. This place must be special to you.”

                “ _Edge!”_ she hissed, whirling around.

                Chuckling, he stepped out from behind a nearby tree, and walked toward her with his arms folded across his chest.

                She didn’t protest when he seated himself on a nearby rock, but she hoped her glare would deter him from staying long.

                “Have you come to tell me how stupid it was to challenge the Lord of All Waters?” she asked lightly.

                He gave her a long, measured look, and then a quick smile. “I came to tell you it was impressive.”

                “What, challenging him?” Rydia inquired.

                “No—you,” he replied.

                “Me?” she laughed, and hurriedly looked away, out across the pond.

                “There’s no use in being embarrassed,” he said, getting her to glance back at him. “How you handled yourself, and how you trapped him—it was impressive.”

                “It didn’t work,” she protested.

                Edge shook his head, his stormy eyes dazzling in the light from the pond. “It _did_ work,” he argued. “He was immobilized. He wasn’t going to let you kill him—that would be counterproductive to the test itself. He escaped when it was convenient.”

                “I can’t believe we won,” Rydia murmured, thinking back to the battle itself.

                “We didn’t _win,”_ Edge corrected her. “He _let_ us win.”

                Rydia sighed. “You speak in so many riddles, I can never figure out what you’re saying,” she complained.

                He shrugged with his hands spread wide. “Take your small victories where you can,” he laughed.

                They fell silent for a moment, but Rydia could still feel his eyes on her, studying her. “You still haven’t answered my question,” he pointed out.

                She looked him square in the eyes, fighting to keep a grin from her lips. When he noticed her weakness, his own grin widened.

                “This is your favorite place, isn’t it?”

                Rydia exhaled through her nose, smiling. “This place reminds me of my mother.”

                He looked at her askance. “Was there a garden like this in Mist?” he asked, trying to draw her out.

                She hummed. “There was. We had a garden with a pond, and she would tell me stories and teach me magic for _hours_. I miss those days,” she said, her smile fading. She looked back at him. “Did you ever have somewhere you spent time with your parents? A place from your childhood that you remember?”

                A smile crept across his face.

                “There was…” he said, trailing off.

                “Sorry—“ she hastily added. “Is that bad to bring up?”

                Edge shook his head slowly. “No, it’s just…it’s hard to remember the better times so soon upon their deaths.”

                “Were you very close to your parents?” she ventured.

                “Yes. Well, my mother mostly,” he answered, frowning.

                Rydia watched him, noticing that there really hadn’t been many moments since he’d entered the Feymarch that he hadn’t been frowning. “Is your headache still bothering you?”

                “I’m not sure what it is about this place, that makes my head feel like it’s in a vice,” he answered.

                “Why didn’t you have Rosa do something about it?”

                “I don’t think she could. Too much magic,” he reflected, looking across the pond.

                “Too much…magic?” Rydia asked, curious.

                He was silent for a stretch and then his grin returned. “Look at you—asking all the questions, now.”

                Rydia sensed he was redirecting her, but wasn’t sure if she had the energy to figure out why. She sighed. “Fine,” she replied. “I won’t ask any more questions. No,” she added an instant later. “Just one more—why did you follow me here?”

                He laughed. “Impressive _and_ sharp,” he mused. “You seemed worried so I decided to ask you why.”

                “I’m not worried,” she retorted.

                “You’re not?” he asked innocently. “Your friends are irritated with you, you’re about to leave your home for the second time, possibly the last, if the war doesn’t end well, and we’re searching for a man who has a penchant for taking over the world. You’re sure you’re not at least concerned?”

                She made a face at him, narrowing her eyes. “Maybe a little.”

                “One thing at a time, Rydia,” he told her, looking at her quite seriously this time. “One thing at a time.”

                She gave him a cautious smile. For once, he’d said something almost…comforting?

                “Well,” he said, standing up. “I can see you want to be alone, so I’m going to leave you to your thoughts.”

                Rydia watched as he took a few steps away. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll walk back with you.”

                He seemed surprised and more than a little pleased. “Who am I to be graced with the High Summoner’s presence?” he laughed.

                When she caught up to him she swatted him on the arm. “Keep talking and you’ll be walking to the airship by yourself before the day is done,” she warned with a smile.

                He shook his head but his smile was devilish. Together, they returned to the house in companionable silence—and the victims of more than one Eidolon’s raised brow.

 

 

 

 

0-0-0-0

 

 

The following morning, Shiva and Mist returned to see them to the portal of the Feymarch. Ramuh had spent much of the morning finding crevices in which to store food in their packs, and Rydia felt like she was carrying the weight of a whole person on her back.

When they approached the portal, the king and queen were waiting for them, as well as several other Eidolons. Fenrir was there, along with Black, Ifrit, Titan and even Halcyon.

Rydia bowed to the king and queen and received hugs from several Eidolons, including grunts of general approval from Ifrit and Titan.

Mist stepped forward with an item draped in silk. She approached Cecil and held the item out for him.

“Take this shield—it is imbued with special protections that will keep you from harm against beings of magic,” she told him.

Cecil slipped the silk from the shield and a fearsome hexagonal disc with a haunting face greeted the light. Looking at it filled _Rydia_ with fear, she could only imagine its effect on fiends. Cecil thanked Mist for her gift, and then Ramuh stepped forward and offered Rydia a coiled bundle. She accepted it, discovering it to be a whip woven together with leather and what appeared to be tail feathers from some manner of bird. It had a luminous sheen.

“Un-coil it,” Ramuh advised her.

She did so and the whip came alive with sizzles and sparks, falling to the ground at her feet with a flail made of what seemed to be small bolts of lightning. Rydia gasped at the novelty of this new weapon.

“A Blitz whip,” Ramuh explained. “Rumor has it those feathers are from a god-being of old,” he added with a wink.

Rydia smiled suspiciously. She had her own ideas of who had imbued the whip with their power, but she wasn’t allowed to divulge such information in the presence of her human friends.

Lastly, Shiva approached Rosa with a folded parcel. At first Rosa seemed reluctant to accept it, but then she accepted the package and folds of elegant fabric slipped out of the wrapping.

Rosa held a robe of gold and silver, embroidered with runes in the hems. It caught the light and shimmered spectacularly. “It’s beautiful,” Rosa murmured, turning the robe this way and that.

“A Luminous Robe,” Shiva told her. “This will protect you from more than magic. Wear it with the blessings of the Feymarch—bearer of the life-giving magic.”

“Thank you,” Rosa said to the Eidolon, overwhelmed by the gift and by the benediction.

“Oh, Rydia, one last thing,” Black said, dragging a sack with a corded neck along the ground. “More books for you. These are bestiaries collected by your people as well as a few other things. They might prove useful if you need a reference and I’m not there to save you.”

Rydia stared at the pack on the ground. “Black, how on earth am I going to carry all of that? I’ve already got a full pack.”

Black stared at the pack and then back at Rydia, not comprehending. “They’ve been miniaturized,” he said as if this was obvious. “They’ll fit.”

Rydia drew her brows together incredulously. “You’ve shrunk them?”

“How else do you think I was able to carry them?”

Rydia shook her head, sighing. She picked up the pack and was surprised that it was indeed light.

“Thank you, Black,” she told the Eidolon, though she noticed that his eyes were pinned to someone standing beside her.

Rydia glanced to her left and saw Edge entrenched in some staring contest with the smaller Eidolon.

“I’m watching you, Son of Shadow,” Black warned with a bit of a growl in his throat.

“Go ahead, you pint-sized—”

“Edge!” Rydia hissed.

Edge looked at her, offended, and even Black seemed disappointed that she’d interrupted their sparring match.

“Humans,” Asura interrupted them. “It is time you were on your way.”

Rydia stepped to where the queen was standing and bowed again.

“Rydia, child, it is my pleasure to offer you my assistance. Go with my blessing once more. May you ever find success in your endeavors beyond this land.”

“It is also my honor to endow you with my blessing,” Leviathan added. “Please call upon me when times are dire and you require the fury of the sea. And now for the paladin—please accept these maps. They will guide you to the place you are seeking. May you also have success in what awaits you.”

“Your majesties, thank you for everything,” Rydia told them. “And to everyone else—to all of my friends and family—without your strength I am lost.”

The Eidolons nodded to her, and Rydia felt compelled to bow out of sincere gratitude.

“We are here for you always,” Mist assured her with a gentle smile.

Rydia then stepped toward the portal that would take her away from this place—away from her home for this second time. She turned to look at her Eidolon family, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes.

“Goodbye,” she said, and was whisked away to the real world.

Moments later, Cecil and the others had joined her in the cavern. Rydia was trying her best to maintain her composure, and kept her back to her friends.

“Rydia, are you alright?” Cecil asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied, her voice tight with emotion.

“Our next step?” Rosa asked.

“We find the final crystal before Golbez does,” Rydia replied, walking onward, refusing to show the tears streaking down her face.

“The final crystal it is,” Cecil agreed, and with resolute steps, the five of them left the Feymarch behind them.

 


	22. The Sealed Cave

 

The directions given to the party by the Eidolons had proven more than effective. Within hours, the airship came within sight of a ring of plateaus matching the dwarves’ description, but Cecil kept the Falcon at a safe distance.

                “The Red Wings,” Rosa commented, clutching the railing as she peered into the distance, her robes shimmering iridescently in the light from the magma. “There’s no sign of them.”

                “My concern exactly,” Cecil admitted, as he skirted them round. They flew in a circumspect fashion for nearly an hour, until they sighted a cluster of buildings nestled into the eastern face of the plateaus. It had the look of a dwarvish village, and Cecil set the ship down nearby and they disembarked, keeping an eye on their surroundings. They weren’t in the mood for surprises, not with so much at stake, and they scanned the area more closely for signs of Golbez and his forces as they approached the main gate of the dwarf settlement. 

They passed beneath a gate made of stone. Nothing looked broken or bombarded, and in fact, nothing looked unusual at all. The five of them walked cautiously along the main road, noting that the dwarves in residence had stopped everything they were doing to stare--until a babble broke out.

                Men carrying pickaxes and shovels over their shoulders hustled over. Rydia tensed, and saw Cecil’s hand fly to the hilt of his sword, wondering if the dwarves meant them harm or not. Within minutes, they were surrounded

                “Who’r you?” one of the dwarves asked, pointing a meaty finger at the five of them.

                “Friends of Giott,” Cecil answered succinctly, ever so slightly relaxing his stance.

                There was a murmur of assent, but also a note of distrust, as the dwarves shuffled from one foot to the other while they considered these outsiders.

                “Big’uns nah cah’mun ‘round hea’,” one of the dwarves said to them, his voice so low and rumbling that it was hard to distinguish anything he’d said.

                “We’re here on a mission for the king,” Cecil elaborated, spacing his words so as to be understood.

                “Giotto,” one of the dwarves nodded fondly, his red beard bobbing with his head as he turned to his companions. “Aye, aye,  what’n we do fer ya?”

                Cecil glanced at Kain, and then at Rosa. Rosa shrugged at her love’s plight, and Cecil frowned, finding he was on his own.

                He lifted his hand so that it was above his head and said, “Have you seen another person, taller than myself—” and then he pointed at his armor. “Black armor?”

                The dwarves stared at him, befuddled. “Armoor,” one of the dwarves said carefully. “Kokkol, yes, armoor,” he added, mimicking Cecil’s gestures.

                “Mach armoor for big’uns, he doos,” another dwarf chimed in, his accent as thick as porridge. “Com ya big’uns,” he said, walking away from the group and waving them after him.

                They all shared a brief, indecipherable look, and followed the dwarf.

                They were led to a low stone building, and once inside, were surrounded by piles of precious stones and elegant chains of metal, including several breastplates inset with more of the gems.

                Everyone took a moment to stand stock still, shocked by how carelessly such costly items had been tossed about.

                “Armoor,” the dwarf said approvingly, pointing at the stash of goods.

                For a moment, Cecil had no words to say, as he tried to determine how to impart what he had really meant to say.

                “Yes,” Cecil replied, nodding encouragingly at the armor. “Dark—black,” he attempted to clarify. “ _Big_ big’un,” he added, raising his hand high above his own head to convey height once more.

                Rydia had to stifle a giggle at Cecil’s awkwardness, and the dwarf’s slack-jawed expression.

                “Aye,” the dwarf said again, pointing to the five of them. “Big’uns. Dark,” he said again, pointing at Kain.

                “Something tells me that Golbez has not come this way,” Kain said, sounding put-upon.

                “I agree, Cecil,” Rosa added. “The dwarves seem genuinely surprised at our being here. If Golbez had arrived with his forces, there would be more fear in their eyes.”

                Cecil offered the dwarf a tight smile, trying his best for it to appear genuine. “Thank you,” he said.

                “Hi-ho!” the dwarf replied with a smile of his own, showing off crooked teeth. He then turned away, muttering to himself, and began to sort through a pile of glittering gems on a work table, ignoring the humans entirely.

                “Oy, big’uns,” interrupted another dwarf voice behind them. They all turned to see a dwarf dressed smartly in chain mail with an axe tucked into the elaborately tooled belt at his belly. By all accounts, he was a formidable sight. “Vulf ‘as na gift fer yer speek. Ye seek ‘nuther big’un like yerselves, ye say?”

                Relieved there was someone among the dwarves who understood them, Cecil eagerly replied. “Yes, have there been any others like us here?”

                The dwarf shook his head. “Dunno wha’ the king want, but yer not’ah find it here.”

                Rydia released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, simultaneously relieved and disappointed. They were getting nowhere fast.

                “Pardon me for asking, but where did all of this armor come from? It looks too large for dwarves,” Cecil inquired.

                “Ah,” the man said with a hearty chuckle. “Kokkol.”

                “Kokkol?” Cecil echoed.

                “Aye, rumor ‘as it he fell fro’ the earth ceilin’. A big’un hisself. Natters on ‘bout armor an’ the sort, makin’ a legend or somesuch. Mach these, he does. Wrong size, always. We take the gems an’ put ‘em to other use.”

                “He makes armor?”

                “Aye, the smithy.”

                Cecil’s shoulders relaxed at hearing it was another man and not Golbez who had been in contact with the dwarves. After a moment, he changed the topic. “Tell us, do you know anything about the Sealed Cave?” he asked.

                The dwarf frowned, and cast a glance at Vulf, and then back at the humans again. Deeming this was not an appropriate venue for them to be speaking, the dwarf beckoned them out of the shop.

             With baffled glances, the five of them followed this new dwarf to another low building on the opposite side of the village. The villagers nodded to their companion as he passed, and then puckered their lips at the sight of the humans, some of them spitting on the ground and making curious hand gestures behind their backs.         

              Rydia raised a brow. They seemed almost—superstitious? She ducked her head to follow Rosa through the doorway of the building behind Cecil and Kain, and was surprised to find herself in a wide antechamber lined with shelves and packed to the brim with items and trinkets and…books? Immediately distracted by her own curiosity, she hadn’t noticed that the knights had been led into a room in the back of the house, while she and Rosa remained in the large antechamber with Edge. Rydia peeled her eyes from the books bound in leather, their spines inscribed with small stones, to see Rosa staring at the same shelves with a look of consternation.

              She wanted to ask the mage what had been bothering her, but a sharp sigh from Edge, indicating his boredom, made her pause to glare at him.

             “Did you have something to say?” she asked archly.

             “Were you planning on following them, or were you merely going to monopolize the entire aisle?” he asked blandly, glancing significantly at the shelves hedging them in on either side.

              Rydia rolled her eyes and stepped to the side, allowing the ninja to walk past.

              Once he was in the back room, did Rydia allow a disgusted groan escape her throat. “I don’t know why he assumes everyone owes _him_ a favor,” she complained to deaf ears, noticing that Rosa was too preoccupied in her own musings to reply.

              Rydia sighed and followed the mage as she meandered silently through more aisles, pausing now and again to study the objects on the shelves inquisitively. Rydia found herself doing much the same, only, she had come to admire that each of the shelves was made of stone and elegantly carved. The dwarves here were proud of their stonework, just as those in the castle, and every cornice, lintel, and shelf in the house was scribed with friezes of vines and plants, and on occasion, insects. Rydia trailed her fingers over the art, wondering at them. How could dwarves from the underworld know of such things?

                “Strange, isn’t it?” Rosa remarked, breaking the long silence, and looking at Rydia over her shoulder.

                Rydia lifted her gaze to the mage’s face. “It is,” she answered, and then gathered her nerves to ask a forthright question. “Rosa, you’ve been worried about something since the Feymarch. Is everything alright?”

                Rosa gave her a nervous laugh, tossing her golden hair across her back. “How could anything be alright?” she asked, returning her attention to the shelves.

                Rydia took a few steps forward, and finally reached out to grip Rosa’s arm. “Hey,” she said. “What is it?”

                “It might be nothing.”

                “The Sealed Cave is just over the ridge. Are you worried that we might already be too late? The dwarves said--”

                “I know what the dwarves said,” Rosa interrupted her, pinching her brows together. “But Golbez has been searching for weeks, always a step ahead. Have you ever…sensed things before they’ve happened?” Rosa asked quietly.

                Rydia studied the other woman more closely, trying to see past her curtain of hair.  “Sometimes,” she reflected.

                “I just have a bad feeling, and it’s been building the closer to that cave we’ve come,” Rosa replied, staring past the shelves, her fingers resting on the stone as though she required the support to stay upright.

                “Is there anything I can do?” Rydia asked.

                Rosa smiled at her, a smile that never reached her eyes. “I don’t know,” she answered, and was then distracted by the sound of the men returning to the main chamber.

                “Ye may wan’ ta take armor wit ye. Fer uh price, a’course,” the dwarf was saying, looking eager to be rid of the extra supply in his inventory and receiving a very _different_ kind of precious metal from the deal.

                Rydia saw Cecil and Kain share a glance, reluctantly nodding. “He did give us the information we sought,” Cecil mused.

                “Speek ta Vulf. An’ he’ll set you up with goods,” the dwarf added, seeing them all to the door.

                They returned to the shop they had first visited, and while the knights picked through armaments, Rydia pondered Rosa’s concerns. How could it be that Golbez had already been searching for weeks, and yet there was no sign of him in this area? Surely, he would have found the sealed cave just as they had. And why was this village left unmarred when so much else had been destroyed?

                It didn’t take long for Kain and Cecil to patch together what had the appearance of complete suits of armor. Vulf seemed pleased with their choices, and then the bartering began.

                “I’m na’ gonn’ part with ‘em fer cheap,” he told them proudly, meaty hands on his hips.

                Cecil haggled the dwarf down to offering them two suits for the price of one, and then handed the dwarf a drawstring purse filled with gil.

                Vulf accepted the coin, and then withdrew a piece and stuck it between his teeth, biting it to see if it was genuine. Satisfied, the dwarf gave them a toothy smile, and Rydia now understood why the dwarf’s teeth were in such disrepair.

                “Whateve’ erran’ Giotto ‘as sent ye on, be car’ful. The Seal’d Cav’ is a foul rumr’d place. Ancien’,” he told them, spitting on the ground as though to ward off evil.

                Cecil nodded to the dwarf and the five of them took their leave, returning to the main road and the curious eyes of the small dwarf community.

“This must be the backwater of the underworld—minus the water,” Rydia heard Edge mutter while they walked, looking at the dwarf settlement disapprovingly.

                She pursed her lips, annoyed at this display of his royal opinions. It had been a while since he’d voiced them, but surrounded by incomprehensible dwarves, she imagined that his patience had expired within the first few minutes of their arrival.

                “I think they’re endearing—if a little peculiar,” she replied with an indignant sniff.

                He groaned. 

                She eyed him sideways. “It would really serve you well to be nicer to people,” she pointed out.

                “Will I ever see these people again?” he asked.

                “Does it matter?”

                He screwed his features into a scowl.

                “That doesn’t serve you well, either,” she retorted as they passed beneath the village gate.

 

                The path the dwarf had suggested to Cecil, Rydia discovered, was a narrow foot track—and a treacherous one. Rocks had tumbled into crevices and the group had a time of climbing around them or splitting them altogether with magic and weapons. There were several underworld fiends that paid them more than a passing notice, and the five of them were stricken by blindness and on occasion, silence, while they fought their way through Rock Moths and their slimy, newly hatched spawn.

                After several hours, the footpath gave way to a wider road that had been caused more by natural erosion than the work of the dwarves, and they stepped out from the shadow of the rock to the inner circle formed by the plateaus. They rested, trying to collect their bearings while Rosa applied her ministrations to those of them that had been wounded.

                Cecil took a long swig of water from his canteen and then looked at Kain, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Does Golbez have any more minions we should know of?” he asked the dragoon.

                Rydia looked over at them, sensing hesitation on the part of Kain. None of her Baronian companions had been quite themselves since leaving the Feymarch, and the closer to the cavern they marched, the more keenly she felt it.

                “I can’t read his mind, Cecil,” Kain replied tersely, digging for something in his pack. “If the dwarves say there’s been no one here, there’s been no one here.”

                “I meant nothing by it,” Cecil said contritely; though Rydia could see the lines of frustration on his brow.

                “You meant that as one of his minions myself, that I could shed some insight into—into this,” Kain said heatedly, gesturing to the strange earth-formed arena surrounding them.

                “That’s a hell of an explanation,” Edge commented from his perch where Rosa was healing a gash on the ninja’s arm. The white mage turned to look at Kain as well, a touch of the same worry in her eyes that Rydia had seen in Tomra. The same worry she’d seen since the Feymarch.

               “It’s none of your business, prince,” Kain retorted, grabbing his pack and hurrying away. “I’m going to scout ahead. If any of his minions _are_ here, you can be sure I’ll inform you,” he added, not quite able to contain the bite in his tone.

                Rydia glanced at Cecil, wondering what exactly was going on. She had seen Kain dissident before, but never to this degree.

                “Cecil—?” Rosa asked, but Cecil just waved her off, shaking his head.

                “I’m sure he’ll be fine. The heat has been getting to all of us,” he said.

                Rydia stared in the direction the dragoon had gone, at the glistening plates of his diamond armor, thinking heat was not the sole excuse.

                Nevertheless, after they had rested for several minutes, they resumed their journey across the blistering stones, and Kain rejoined them eventually. He kept a significant distance between himself and the rest of them, but then, so did Edge. At least Rydia trusted Edge to be keeping an eye on their back, but Kain—he seemed intent on himself; separated from them by more than just distance.

                Several more hours passed and they had already skirted a large portion of the plateau’s interior, with no sign of the Sealed Cave. They paused again to rest after an attack had sprung from the rocks to their east, and left each of them stricken to some degree.

                Rosa was with Cecil, carefully prying the long fang of a black lizard from his forearm where the flesh had turned gray from petrification. She was murmuring the words to Esuna and Rydia pretended to busy herself with her supplies while she eavesdropped on their conversation.

                “Rosa, what is it? What’s on your mind?” Cecil asked quietly between winces as Rosa’s deft fingers prodded the pierced flesh.

                Rosa sighed, finishing the first of several incantations. “I feel like someone’s watching us,” she said, and then frowned. “But Edge doesn’t sense it. I’m wondering if Golbez is closer than we realize.”

             “Kain?” Cecil asked.

             “I don’t know,” Rosa admitted. “I remember what Golbez’s presence felt like and it feels like he’s still dogging my footsteps. I close my eyes and it’s like I’m back in the tower.”

             “I’ll keep my eyes open,” Cecil assured her, taking one of her hands into his, as he raised his other hand to her cheek.

             “Thank you,” Rosa murmured, as she closed her eyes, inviting the touch. Rydia watched the two of them out of the corner of her eye, feeling a sharp pang of—something. Longing? Longing for the understanding that the two of them shared? She sighed, returning her attention to her pack in earnest and leaving her friends to their quiet intimate conversation. No sooner than this, did she have the suspicion that a certain someone was approaching her from behind.

             “What do you know about him?” Edge asked without preamble, confirming her suspicions. She glanced at him, half-turning.

             “Who?” she asked stubbornly.

              He nodded in the direction of the dragoon who was standing watch several yards away.

             “What’s his damage?” Edge clarified.

              Rydia sighed, hugging her knees with her arms. “Why do you want to know?”

              He gave her a significant look. “Why do you _think?_ ”

              Rydia rolled her eyes, and pursed her lips, but decided it was best to explain out of earshot from the others. She walked a short distance away and then whirled to face him. He was scrutinizing her, and she imagined he wore a frown beneath his mask.

           “He’s unraveling,” Edge said after a moment.

           “You noticed that too?” she asked lightly, not surprised he’d picked up on the tension on his own.

           “There’s more of a history between those three, and it has something to do with the part of all your tales that you haven’t shared,” he pointed out.

            Rydia tilted her head side to side, stretching sore muscles and tendons, as she wondered how to explain what he wanted to know in as few words as possible. “Golbez used Kain,” she said simply.

           “He was working for the enemy?” Edge asked, his blue eyes narrowing to slits.

           “Cecil said it was mind control,” she explained. “And while he was under Golbez’s control, he helped to take Rosa captive, and to thwart Cecil and all of us on our quest for the crystals.”

          “Why is a known traitor here—in this group?” Edge wanted to know, and his voice held a note of anger that took Rydia by surprise.

         “The spell over him was broken and he returned to his senses,” she said with a shrug. “Cecil and Rosa forgave him and he returned to the group.”

         “Just like that?” Edge asked.

          Rydia frowned, thinking about her own reservations on the subject. “There have been—tensions,” she amended. “But for the most part, he’s been helpful, and he’s given us insight into those who serve under Golbez’s command.”

         “And you trust him?” Edge asked, folding his arms across his chest.

         “I—” she began and then stopped. “I admit, he isn’t my favorite of traveling companions, and I don’t think I can ever trust him as I do Cecil, but I don’t _hate_ him,” she admitted, surprised she’d said the words.

         Edge continued to study her, obviously displeased by this new information; but after a moment, he turned away. “I’ll keep my eye on him,” he said as he casually waved a hand over his shoulder.

         It was Rydia’s turn to cross her arms, as she watched Edge’s retreating form. Far to her left she could still see Kain standing watch, his axe leaning against his leg as he stared out across the basin. There was something decidedly _off_ about the dragoon, but what it was, Rydia couldn’t figure out. Rosa was concerned, and even Cecil and Edge had their suspicions. Was it possible that Kain knew something about what lay ahead that he wasn’t telling them?”

           Kain suddenly turned and caught her staring. She went ram-rod straight and strode back to the others, embarrassed that she’d been seen.

           Once she’d rejoined Cecil and Rosa, she saw Cecil’s arm had been made good as new.

          “Rydia?” Rosa said her name as a question once she’d drawn near.

          Rydia quickly pasted a smile on her face, trying to hide her discomfort. “Are we moving on soon?” she asked.

          Rosa arched a brow at her, sensing the redirection, but choosing to ignore it. “We will be,” the mage answered, wiping dust from her hands as she stood. “Is everything alright?”

         “Everything’s fine,” Rydia lied. “I was just curious.”

           Rosa watched her peculiarly as she slung her pack over her shoulder and jostled it into a comfortable position on her back. “I’m ready when you are,” Rydia informed her friend, though truthfully, she was just eager to have a distraction from their brooding companion.

          Cecil, thankfully, agreed with her. “I’m rested—you?” he asked Rosa, as he retrieved his weapons.

          The white mage nodded and the five of them continued their journey across the basin, albeit, with a little more caution than before.

 

After several hours they approached a crevice in the rock face, the first irregularity they’d seen since reaching the plateau’s interior. Through it they saw stanchions made of marble set in perfectly straight rows; and behind those, they saw a great smooth slab of stone inscribed with dwarf writing. The cave entrance.

They approached with caution, and Cecil withdrew the key given to him by Giott so long ago, holding it delicately in his palm. Rydia had stolen glances at it before, but never had she looked on it fully, and she was surprised by how intricate it was. They key itself was made of a polished white stone and its blade was long and had teeth on both sides, so slight and close together that they looked like an elegant comb. The bow was carved with elegant impressions, and at its base, a gleaming red jewel had been set. Rydia’s eyes swept from the key to the sheer rock face before them, looking for the equally impressive lock that was meant for the key. Instead, all she saw was a flat and impassive surface denying them access to anywhere.

           “No wonder Golbez never found it, it _is_ the rock itself,” Rosa said, running a hand along the dwarvish runes.

Cecil joined Rosa by the wall, staring at the writing, and handling the key in his palm, turning it over and over.

Rosa looked at the key in his hand, making a curious expression. “Is there an incantation of some kind?”

Rydia took the opportunity to examine the stanchions, wondering if they served some purpose in the opening of the door.

“Are we sure this is the correct entrance?” Edge asked, staring at the entire cavern doubtfully. “They could be using this as a decoy.”

Cecil looked at the ninja with a furrowed brow, and walked between the stanchions; stopping to stand in the middle, clearly underwhelmed. At that precise moment, the key reacted. It blazed ruby red and thunder crackled through the air as liquid fire jumped from the jewel and into the stanchions, lighting each with an unnatural flame. They all leapt back at the unexpected explosion and felt the ground begin to rumble and shake. The flat stone slab with the dwarf writing glowed with heat, and the words themselves dripped like molten metal as a seam appeared in the rock and split the slab into two halves. The ground continued to quake and dust was flying through the air as pebbles and rocks slipped from the cliffs around them. Rydia nearly lost her footing, but felt a quick hand catch her elbow, and glanced behind her to realize, annoyingly, that it was Edge.

           It took several minutes for the dust to settle, but once it did, the five of them saw a wide gaping entryway leading further into the belly of the earth.

          “Looks like we found the correct entrance after all,” Cecil commented, as he led them forward, keeping his shield raised before him. They entered the cavern as dust continued to fall periodically from the ceiling.

          “This doesn’t seem stable,” Edge observed, looking around them.

          “Does this cave have more defenses than the entrance?” Rosa wondered aloud as they fanned out near the door. The cavern itself was surprisingly well-lit, glowing from rivers of magma deep below their feet. Rydia peered over the edge of the rock ledge they were standing on, trying to see how far the cave fell beneath them.

          “This cavern has survived ages, I’m sure it can suffer us,” Cecil replied, joining Rydia at the ledge.

          “Look!” Rosa suddenly said, directing their attention with her pointing finger to a rope anchored farther across the ledge.

          She and Edge were the first to inspect the rope, and Edge was tugging at it, testing its tautness.

         “Well?” Cecil asked. “Is it passable?”

         “Should be,” Edge replied, rubbing his chin with a hand, as though still considering how best to cross it.

          Rydia stared at the rope and at the expanse beneath it and swallowed hard. If they fell…

          A quick movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Edge had thrown one of their packs across the ledge and onto the next solid outcrop. She watched as it raised a puff of dust when it landed and felt an impressive sense of dread that she would soon have to join the pack on the other side.

           “Now it’s a question of who goes first,” Edge said, eyeing each of them in turn.

           “I’ll go,” Cecil volunteered, slinging his shield over his shoulder and taking hold of the rope. Rydia watched nervously as he shimmied across, keeping an eye on the rope at both ends lest it snap while he was in the middle. Edge followed after Cecil was safely across, and afterwards, it was Rydia’s turn. She carefully held onto the rope, hooking her ankles around it as she slid hand over hand to the other side. Every inch of the way she silently prayed that she wouldn’t fall to her death, and kept her eyes firmly affixed to her destination.

           Once she had reached the other side, she reached out to grip the stone ledge and haul herself up, but Edge leaned down to take her hand and pull her up instead. She reddened with sudden embarrassment, simultaneously insulted that he thought she couldn’t pull herself up, and relieved that he’d offered. He lifted her to her feet, and she took a quick step away, pretending not to have needed his assistance. He gave her a lopsided smirk and shook his head, while she busied herself with straightening her robes and equipment. He returned his gaze to Rosa who was shimmying across next, and Rydia let out a deep sigh, glad she was no longer the object of his attentions. He had a knack for making her uncomfortable and she still couldn’t put her finger on why.

 

 0-0-0-0

 

             Once they had all safely reached the other side, they continued to navigate the cavern’s interior, following narrow paths, and natural bridges. The cave floor had a coating of fine sand, and there were times when the path ahead became obscured when the cavern roof shuddered and tawny clouds spewed down from above.

           Several fiends lurked in the crevices of the rock—slithering Nagarajas and vampire bats whose gleaming green eyes peered out around dark corners. The five companions picked their battles carefully, not knowing how deep the cavern plunged and when they might next be able to rest.

          “These doors are enormous,” Rydia observed, as they approached their first genuine barrier since entering the cave. “Do you think they’ll still open for us?”

          Rosa frowned and stared up at the impressive double-doors before them. “I feel as if it’s watching us,” Rosa said, a little alarmed.

         “The door?” Cecil asked, finding this a ridiculous notion.

         “She’s right,” Edge added, backing up. “Where’s the handle? Where are the hinges? And it has a strange feeling about it that I can’t place. Something’s definitely not right.”

            Rydia stared at the door, thinking that her eyes were playing tricks on her. Had the door itself _moved?_ She jumped back when two horrifying orange eyes suddenly sprouted out of the ancient wood. The eyes glared at them, and the seam of the doors transformed into a mouth with angular teeth.

           “No mortals shall pass,” a voice boomed at them, deep and dark and terrifying.

            Rydia sensed magic being cast as the door sparked, and she watched a strange purple aura spread around Kain.

           “Kain, get away!” Rosa shouted, hurriedly.

            But Kain did not respond—he didn’t even move an inch. He was transfixed with the door.

           “Kain!” Rosa cried out, as a second spell stole his spirit from his body. He fell limply to the ground, his knees slamming into the dust; and Rosa hastily began the Raise incantation, her words tenuous on the air.

           “A trap door?” Cecil asked in shock, torn between wanting to check on his fallen friend, and lunging forward to thwart this foe.

           The door posed more of a challenge to their journey than they would have liked. It stood in their way, forcing them to fight their way past, or to turn back. While they considered their options, the door began to cast another spell—this time targeting Cecil. Rather than do nothing, Cecil charged forward and heaved his sword at the door, hacking until there were splinters. He succeeded in making one jagged gash in the wood before the trap door took him down in a graceless heap of bones and sinew, no longer animate.

            Rosa began casting once more, and the tremor in her voice was unmistakable. Rydia could tell her friend was shaken.

             Edge picked up the slack of Kain, who remained motionless and detached from the battle, and Cecil who was slowly crawling to his feet; and threw a series of darts at the door, clinks and thuds sounding as each one struck home. It was a valiant effort, but they did little more than melt near the door’s eyes and stick to the surface of the planking.

            “Kain, are you going to do something?” Edge snarled, tugging at the dragoon’s arm. “ _Come on!_ ”

            But Kain stood like a limpet and did nothing.  

            The impassiveness of the dragoon caused Rydia to worry that without his help, this battle could very quickly turn out of their favor. She closed her eyes and began to summon, weaving the ancient words of her people with the sacrosanct rites of the Feymarch, beseeching assistance. She summoned Ifrit, the heat and force of Hellfire surrounding him and all near him the moment he arrived. The mighty beast flung his flame against the door, fire splashing against it like a wave; but just as his unearthly bellow shook the air, Rydia felt the aura of death creep up around her like an insidious chill. She watched as Ifrit’s hellfire scorched a blackened circle in the door; but all she had time for, before death circled near, was to dismiss Ifrit to the Feymarch as her spirit was severed from her senses.

            She had no idea how much time had passed, but she felt weightless, detached--and then her spirit was re-tethered to her body. Opening her eyes, she felt herself being lifted to her feet, and blinked, seeing it was Edge beside her.

            “Welcome back,” he told her with a worried smile that she couldn’t help but wonder at.

             She was glad to be back, but she had no idea how long she’d been out.

             Her eyes flitted to Rosa, and saw with dismay, the cold purple aura that had targeted the mage as its next victim. She and Rosa both shared a frantic look, each understanding the other’s plight. Cecil had already begun to chant the Raise incantation, but Rydia knew there was no avoiding the fear and panic of your life being snuffed out. Even with the safety net of white magic, there were times when you’d wonder if you’d ever come back at all.

The sinuous spell of death coiled around Rosa, and the instant she began to fall, Kain sprang into action, causing a burst of wind that whipped Rydia’s hair across her face. He leapt, and on his descent, skewered the door right between the panels into the depth of the trap’s gaping mouth. The door’s face bellowed in rage, the sound like that of antiquated hinges in sore need of oil, and the panels were dislodged so that they hung askew.

              Rydia wove the words of Firaga on the heels of Kain’s attack, bending flame and heat to her purpose until they spewed against what remained of the wood in hungry torrents. The doors burned to smoldering coals on the floor revealing an entryway that had previously been concealed; and seeing that the trap was indeed destroyed, Rydia fell to the cavern floor, breathless. Everyone around her was breathing hard, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

             Cecil was raising Rosa to her feet, and the white mage was holding onto him as he assured her that she was alright—that the threat was gone.

             Edge turned on Kain. “Fine time to decide to be useful,” he snapped. “What were you doing, taking a nap while the rest of us were dying?”

             “I—” Kain said, staring at his hands as if they were not his own. “What happened?”

             “What happened?” Edge asked, aghast. “The trap door!”

             “I lost track of—of where I was for a few minutes.”

             “You were dead for a few minutes,” Cecil said quietly.

              Kain looked at his friend, archly. “That must be it.”

                Edge wasn’t convinced. “Space out again, and I’ll feed you to the monsters myself,” he said, walking toward the doorway and kicking a charred piece of wood out of his path.

                Rydia raised a brow, surprised by Edge’s threat, but not entirely. She was glad someone _else_ had decided to throttle the dragoon for being useless when they’d needed him most.

                “The defenses of this cavern are impressive,” Cecil observed after a minute, inspecting the doorframe.

                “Not much good this key affords us in terms of safe passage,” Rosa remarked, nodding to the key that Cecil had tucked back into his sword belt.

                “Hopefully this will be the last of the defenses,” he said, trying to be optimistic.

                Edge turned from up ahead and gave the paladin an incredulous look, saying nothing.

                Cecil shrugged tiredly. “It was worth a try,” he said.

 

   0-0-0-0

 

               They continued onward, shimmying down more ropes like the first, and navigating the passages into myriad rooms and chambers. The quantity of fiends increased the deeper they traveled, and they added bite wounds and exsanguinations to their list of woes. And as if to add insult to injury, no door was what it seemed. Hours had passed and a dozen doors had met their ends in showers of flame and high impacts, but not without imparting their own cruel sort of justice.

                “How many times do you think we’ve died today?” Edge commented eventually, trudging wearily through the passage they had just cleared.

“Too many,” Rydia replied, not sure why she was indulging him. Her head was pounding from repeated Raise incantations leaving an over-abundance of magic humming through her nerves.

“Are all the doors like this?” Cecil asked offhandedly.

“I hope not,” Rosa answered flatly. “My magic is dangling by a thread and if I don’t take the chance to rest soon, there isn’t much we can do should another door challenge us.”

“Wonderful,” Edge answered dryly.

                Rydia stared down at her hands that were cut and blistered from rocks and climbing ropes. Her voice was hoarse from repetitive casting, and she felt light-headed from loss of blood—damned vampire bats….

 If they faced one more door she was sure her own magic would fail her, and she eyed her dwindling supplies with apprehension.

                Cecil led them past a row of closed doors, and they elected for now, to leave them be. It wasn’t until one particular door caught their attention that they paused to examine the inscription on the door’s frame.

                “This looks encouraging,” Cecil said, as his eyes roved the placard. Edge joined the paladin and the two of them came to a general agreement that the room had the markings of warding—of safety.

                Rosa sighed deeply, shrugging her shoulders. “Is it a warding?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

                “It seems to be,” Cecil answered, still studying the runes.

                “Now if the door would cooperate with us—” Kain muttered, taking a step back.

                “I volunteer for not opening this one,” Edge said with a grimace, sliding his twin katanas from their sheaths.

                Cecil let out a sharp breath and glared at the prince. “This makes three, Edge.”

                Edge simply shrugged. “You’re more heavily armed.”

                The paladin’s gaze turned piercing. “Armor doesn’t protect against death,” he said matter-of-factly, and then thought better of it when he noticed Edge’s irritating smirk. “You know what I mean.”

                Rydia rolled her eyes and readied herself. None of the other doors had simply been doors, why would this one be any different?

                Her suspicions were proven correct.

                This time it was Kain and Edge who fell, for all the ninja prince’s complaints about avoiding imminent death. Rydia was tired of ineffectual attacks against the relentless doors, and with two of their companions down, she called upon the most dangerous in her arsenal. Leviathan made an appearance with the full force of the ocean behind him, water rumbling and fangs and fins slamming into the door with terrifying ferocity. The door creaked and groaned and hung askew, and Rydia dismissed the King of the Feymarch with an appreciative nod. Surely that should have put an end to the menace.

                “Something’s coming!” Cecil shouted as a haunting cry pierced the wide open cavern behind them. Rydia’s hair stood on end while she watched a beast with pale green skin, a sinuous neck, curved fangs, and the legs of at least two creatures, come into view through the broken door. A manticore.

Rydia’s spirits dropped. She remembered the unpleasant sting of a manticore’s attack from earlier on that day, and she was not eager to see it repeated.

“Take cover!” Cecil shouted again, bracing himself behind his shield, and trying to cover Rosa as quickly as possible. Rydia ducked, protecting her head with her arms as the manticore’s blaze sizzled across the cavern floor, licking at her skin and hair, and sapping her strength.

                Tears pricked her eyes and she bit her lip to keep from crying out, and just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, the attack ceased, and Rosa’s steady voice was chanting. The soothing balm of white magic covered Rydia’s body, healing sores and burns. The manticore was hissing and pawing the ground, but Cecil had already plunged forward with sword and shield in hand. Rydia began chanting as well, Bio leaving her lips as Rosa’s Raise incantation returned Kain to his senses.

                The manticore lunged with its tail, battering Cecil’s shield with a tremendous thunk, and throwing the paladin back on his feet.

                Edge was also conscious at last; and his disgust at realizing the situation he’d been brought into was more than obvious. He began throwing shurikens almost immediately, complaining loudly about bad timing and the whole venture altogether.     

                Rydia was more preoccupied with keeping away from the manticore’s fangs and claws than to Edge’s misgivings. She dodged and rolled, keeping away from a sweep of the manticore’s tail, but it proved fruitless when the creature bellowed and blue flame showered them all in a painful wave.

               Rydia fell to her knees, her head swimming as she fought off the shock. She felt Rosa’s white magic envelope her, but the healing was meager, and she knew Rosa was at the end of her reserves. She knew her own magic reserves were useless to her now. All she had with her was the Blitz whip tucked into her belt. She uncoiled it now, not waiting for someone else to take the offensive. She sprang forward, and swung with all her might, snapping the flail of the whip into the flesh of the manticore’s chest with a snap of sparks and electric fire. Green ichor spewed from the torn muscle and skin, and the manticore charged. Rydia prepared herself for another attack, but the manticore suddenly changed tactic, there was a blurring in her vision, and all of her senses became consumed by a sense of falling.                

                She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but she was waking up what felt like hours later. When had she lost consciousness?

                There were snippets of conversation around her, but she only heard them dimly.

                “We should conserve what items we have,” she heard Cecil saying. “We can regain our strength here in the warding. Rydia, can you hold on?” she realized he was directing the question at her and she nodded numbly, not quite sure what was going on.

                She sensed that somewhere above her, someone was peering down at her with concern, but everything was sort of jumbled in her mind. Maybe she was imagining things.

                She tilted her head so that she could see her companions more fully and noticed the beginnings of a structure being built in a close space. They must have reached the warding after all.

                As her head wrapped itself around its surroundings, she realized that someone _was_ looking down at her. Edge—how typical.

               “What—happened?” she asked, slightly delirious.

               “You were out cold for a while,” he replied, and his voice sounded tired.

                He was awfully close—uncomfortably close, and Rydia attempted to sit up to move away from him, but instantly gave up when her head raged in protest. She fell backward, bumping into something soft and warm part of the way down. She realized her head was leaning against Edge’s leg and had been all along. She frowned.

               “Why aren’t you building the cabin with them?” she asked, aggrieved.

               “You’re not the only one who’s wounded,” he volleyed.

               She angled herself to see him better and noticed the crude bandage wrapped around his other thigh with blood seeping through it.

               “What happened to you?” she asked, impressed by the wound.

               “Manticore got me with its tail—while I was trying to pull you out of the way,” he explained, slipping a jab at her into his last remark.

               Rydia reddened with embarrassment and guilt. “No one asked you to do that.”

              “It’s what comrades do,” he answered with a shrug and a long-suffering sigh. “Besides, I thought it might get me back in your good graces,” he added with a quick grin.

               Rydia closed her eyes, too tired to care. “It failed,” she mumbled.           

              “What were you doing, anyway?” he wanted to know. “You charged ahead right at the last minute.”

              Rydia cracked open her eyes and stared drowsily at the ceiling of the cave, at the stalactites dangling above them. She wondered idly, how securely they were affixed to the ceiling and then wondered morbidly what it might feel like to have the cave collapse on them…

             “Hey,” Edge prodded her, jostling his good leg so that her head bobbed with it.

               She paused, trying to mask her embarrassment with a flash of anger. “Everyone else was pinned down, what did you expect me to do?” she demanded, fixing her attention back to him.

                “Take your beating from a safe distance like the rest of us,” he complained.

                “I’m sure you were so inconvenienced,” she replied, incensed.

                “Next time, stick to magic. You’re better at it,” he lectured.

                She frowned, and pondered what sound he’d make if she hit his injured leg. Probably some undignified, un-princely sound. She smirked at the thought, closing her eyes again.

                “What’s so entertaining?” he asked dourly.

                “Nothing that you’d find nearly as entertaining,” she answered smugly.

                Cecil walked over to them several minutes later, his brow beaded with sweat, and his armor streaked with dust and blood. He knelt beside them, giving Rydia a serious once-over.

                “How are you feeling?” he asked, trying his best to smile.

                “Heavy,” she replied with a deep sigh.

                Cecil flicked his gaze to Edge, and then at the ninja’s injured leg. “Bandage needs to be changed,” he noticed.

                Edge made a noncommittal grunt and Rydia felt him shrug. “I’ve been worse.”

                “I’ll carry Rydia; would you like—”

                “No,” Edge replied instantly. “I can limp there perfectly fine on my own.”

                The paladin smiled a little devilishly and scooped Rydia into his arms. She felt like a small child in Cecil’s arms, as if she were no more burden to him than a feather, as he walked her to the cabin. Once inside, she was set down onto a cot and her pack was laid beside her. Several minutes later, Edge hobbled in and claimed a cot near the door, pulling gingerly at the dressing of his wound.

                “How’s Rosa?” Rydia had enough sense to ask.

                “Tired,” the mage replied from somewhere behind her. Rydia turned over and saw Rosa sitting on another cot with a wedge of bread in her hand, pulling pieces off of it and savoring each bite. Rosa extended the bread to Rydia. “Are you hungry?”

                Rydia shook her head, too dizzy to feel like eating.

                “I can’t seem to shake my hunger,” Rosa complained with a frown, retracting the offer. “Every time I use magic to this extent—I can’t help but eat.”

                Rydia grinned tiredly. “I can’t help but sleep,” she replied.

                “Then sleep,” her friend advised. “We used our supplies heavily in this last stretch and neither of us has any magic left between us. All we can do now is rest.”

                Rydia agreed with this plan, but she noticed someone was missing when she watched Cecil approach Edge and try to cajole the ninja into letting him help with his injured leg.

                “Where’s Kain?” she asked.

                There was a pause as glances were exchanged. “Out scouting,” Cecil answered, returning his attention to Edge and pouring water over the wound, making the ninja wince and scowl.

                Had something else happened while she was unconscious?

                “He’ll be back soon, I’m sure,” Rosa assured her.

                Rydia stared at her friends curiously, but none of them spared her any more details. Deciding she didn’t care all-too-much, Rydia set her head down on her pillow and was instantly asleep.

 

                Later on that evening, Rydia awoke thirsty for water. She sat up on her cot and saw everyone else was still asleep—except for one cot which remained empty. She took several swigs of water from her canteen and ventured out of the cabin with a dual-purpose—to stretch her legs and to figure out where Edge had gone. The moment she stepped out the door, she saw a small fire had been built near the side of the warding with bits of wood from what had probably been the latest trap door. Edge was sitting next to it, his knees drawn up loosely to his chest.

                “You’re not sleeping?” she asked as she walked over.

                He spared her a glance over his shoulder and then returned his gaze to the fire, the light flickering in his eyes.

                She joined him, sitting a few feet away, her hands on her knees. She stole a few glances in his direction, but he seemed content to let the silence reign.

                “You should probably go back inside,” he told her eventually.

                “I’m not one of your subjects,” she retorted. “I do as I like.”

                He frowned and sighed. “You were the one complaining about being tired earlier, and now you’re the one who can’t sleep,” he pointed out.

              “It’s hard to sleep here,” she replied. “What about you?”            

                He furrowed his brow. “Too much to think about.”

              “How’s the leg?”

              “Bearable. How’s the head?”

              “Better.”

              They were quiet for a few minutes more, and Rydia began to fidget a little anxiously. He stirred finally and she nearly jumped, looking at him curiously.

              “I was just thinking how this time last year, we never thought—” he said, looking away, “—that we would be as devastated as we are now,” he finished haltingly, looking back at Rydia with such pain that she almost reached out to grip his hand. She was surprised that after making her bear the brunt of his sarcasm for the last few days, that he would suddenly open up to her in all sincerity.

              Mist had become a distant memory, but one inexorably fixed in her mind like the after-image of the sun burned into your vision long after you’d looked away. Eblan was recent, very recent, and she remembered how volatile her emotions had been when she’d first joined Cecil, and her first few months in the Feymarch. Disbelief, despair—she _knew._

               She stared back at him, wishing she could offer him the gift of healing that time had brought to her, but it was pointless. There was no Feymarch for him to run to.

                “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the ground between them. It was a paltry thing to say in light of the storm raging in his heart, but she had to say something.

                He looked up at her with a sad grin. “Why are you sorry? You’ve seen enough destruction in your own life.”

                “That doesn’t make it any easier to see it in someone else’s,” she answered.

                He released a slow breath. “So much is different now,” he mused.

                “You’ll take the throne, won’t you?” she asked.

                He shot her a glance and then stared at the fire. Apparently she’d struck a nerve. “Yes, I suppose I will.”

                Rydia, mis-reading his reticence, said, “You suppose? Don’t all princes inherit the throne?”

                He smiled ruefully. “One day you expect your father to live to see old age and for yourself to lead a life of your own. The next, you’re claiming your inheritance, and you’re not even sure how it all came to be, let alone why.”

                “What would you have done otherwise?” Rydia asked quietly. “If they were both still alive?”

                “I don’t know. Something other than be trapped in a castle,” he answered grimly. “They had to go and leave me with this mess to fix.”

                Rydia had never heard Edge speak ill of his parents, and this last comment surprised her. “You don’t want it, do you?” she asked.

                “The throne? Not particularly,” he answered with a frown. “It’s a life sentence, and to take it now—”

                Rydia finally did reach out to grip his hand. “If you’re afraid you won’t be able to meet the expectations of your people, or your parents, I’m sure you’re wrong.”

                He stared at her hand on top of his, and then at her. His eyes were narrowed, staring at her as if she’d just said something astoundingly novel.

                “For someone who spent her life away from humans for so long, you’re surprisingly perceptive,” he told her, reaching out to brush her disobedient bangs away from her eyes with his thumb. His hand lingered behind her ear for a moment, as if he was considering her.  She felt her heart perform a somersault in her chest, and she stiffened at his touch, unsure of how this turn of events had come about. It had started off perfectly innocent, but he had that certain look in his eyes, appealing to that other side of her that she didn’t understand.

                She pulled back a little breathlessly, and whatever spell between them was shattered. “I’m going back inside,” she informed him. “You should try to rest, too.”

                There was a brief wave of disappointment on his face that she chose to ignore as she turned her back on him. She returned to the cabin and her cot, her dizziness returning. She buried her head in blankets, hiding her blush from even herself.

 

                The next morning arrived too soon. There was some debate about staying where they were for longer, but Rosa felt much better rested by morning and didn’t think it was necessary to delay. She had even healed Edge’s leg before the cabin’s enchantment had worn off and the beams and cots around them faded like vapor in the air.

                “I went ahead and tried to find a better route,” Cecil informed them, returning to the warding. Rydia hadn’t even realized he was gone.

                “And?” Edge asked curiously.

                “There don’t seem to be many doors left. We should be able to proceed down a staircase to the far side of them—it was tucked away a little.”

                “Are we bypassing the other doors between here and there?” Edge pressed.

                “I think they serve as decoys,” Cecil replied. “The true path is that staircase. It wasn’t that easy to find.”

                “Well, then. I’m all for skipping a few annoyances,” Edge announced, standing up.

                Rydia, too, was eager to avoid more of the doors, and she was ready for this errand to be over. What would become of them after retrieving the crystal, she didn’t know, but it would be better than stumbling aimlessly in the dark.

                “Kain, are you ready to move on?” Cecil asked his friend, and Rydia glanced at the dragoon and noticed the dark circles under his blue eyes. Had he not slept at all?

           The dragoon shrugged. “Whatever you think is best,” the man grumbled, absently.

 

           They left the warding behind them and walked past several imposing doors. This time, they ignored the traps, keeping their eyes warily fixed on them instead. Cecil led them to the staircase he had discovered earlier in the day.  It was tucked into a crevice in the rock around a sharp corner. They followed the stairs deeper into the cavern, and from there, across several more narrow paths suspended over deep chasms. The cave seemed to go on forever, and Rydia was becoming distressed that they would never reach the crystal at its end. It didn’t help that behind her, she heard Kain muttering to himself. He spoke nonsense, generally, but every once in a while it sounded like he was carrying on an argument with himself. She glanced at him time and again, and whenever she called his name, he would snap to attention as if he’d been asleep.

                Much to her chagrin, Edge had taken to walking at her side, glancing at the dragoon as well. She knew he had promised to keep an eye on the dragoon, but now she felt that he was keeping tabs on her as well.

                “He’s getting worse,” Edge noticed after they’d stopped to rest after being attacked by a vampiress and her den of bats.

                Rydia took a swig of water from her canteen. “Why do you think that is?”

                “I’m not sure, but it’s almost as if—” Edge said, stopping himself from continuing.

                “What?” she asked, slightly alarmed.

                “As if he’s reverting,” Edge finished at last, staring at the dragoon suspiciously.

                Now Rydia was truly alarmed. “You think Golbez is trying to ensnare him again?”

                Edge shrugged. “That, or it’s the heat.”

                Rydia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at Edge very seriously. “Should we tell Cecil?”

                “I think he already knows, even if he won’t openly acknowledge it,” Edge replied.

                “What should we do?”

                “Keep him distracted,” Edge said with a sigh, standing up and sauntering over to the dragoon. Judging by the blank look on Kain’s face, he was lost in some sort of daze, and Rydia hoped that Edge could snap the other man to attention long enough to keep him with them—in spirit as well as body. Edge had a knack for irritating the dragoon in any case, and Rydia admitted that this was a job best suited to him.

                “Rydia?” Rosa’s voice called down to her. Rydia looked away from the tableau shaping up in front of her, and saw Rosa standing on the next ledge above her.

                “Rosa?” she replied, not sure what else to say.

                The white mage stepped down and took a seat on the cave floor beside her. She had a stern look on her face and there was a hint of worry in her eyes. For a moment, Rydia thought it had to do with Kain. She had wanted to keep that burden off of Rosa’s shoulders for as long as possible, but now it seemed her plans and Edge’s had been for naught.

                “What is it?” Rydia asked after a few minutes had gone by and Rosa hadn’t spoken.

                “I’ve noticed that you spend a lot of time with Edge,” Rosa began, looking Rydia in the eye a little awkwardly. “And I can’t fault you for wanting to become more familiar with our newest companion,” she added a little hurriedly, “But I just want to caution you. Don’t always trust a man’s intentions, Rydia. Some men pursue women for sport, and I don’t want to see your heart toyed with. Not that I’m entirely certain of the prince’s motives or his interests, but he’s older than you; and, I think, knows more of the ways between men and women than you.”

                Rydia blushed red immediately. She hadn’t ever thought of her interactions with Edge in any such way, but then her mind returned to the previous night and their talk by the fire. The way he’d touched her…. Her blush deepened. Had Rosa seen them?

                “There’s nothing—” Rydia stammered, embarrassed. “There’s nothing like that between us.”

                Rosa looked at her frankly. “Guard your heart, Rydia. For now, that’s all the advice I can give you.”

                “I’m not looking for _that_ kind of friendship,” Rydia shot back, a little incensed. “He’s just been asking questions, and I happen to be the only available ear.”

                Rosa arched a brow. “And it has nothing to do with him always being near you in battle, or always being the one to offer you assistance?”

                Rydia was becoming more flustered by the minute. “Perhaps he’s just concerned,” she sputtered, not sure why she was defending him when truthfully, she’d been wondering the same things. He _had_ been straying to her side more often than usual, and he _had_ been nearby whenever she had stumbled or fallen or needed help being pulled to her feet. Was it some sort of affection on his part? Her embarrassment turned into irritation.

                “I appreciate the advice, Rosa,” she told the other woman. “I’m alright, really.”

                Rosa studied her for a minute longer and then shifted her attention to Kain and Edge. “What is he doing now?” she asked, glaring at the prince.

                The vacant look had fled Kain’s eyes as he had turned to verbally spar with the ninja beside him. Edge seemed rather pleased with himself, and Rydia shook her head. “Being himself,” she replied with an exasperated sigh.

 

 

                “Time to move on,” Cecil announced from above a short time later. Both women looked up at the paladin, prying themselves away from the cavern floor to stand up and follow him.

                The path Cecil led them on became steeper and narrower, and it felt like they were journeying to the center of the earth. They finally reached a chamber that had been cut into the rock by what looked to be human hands—it had smooth sides and pillars set at regular intervals. There was a deep chasm that ran through the center of the room with a rope bridge that spanned across it.

                “This looks like the end of the journey,” Rosa said, relieved.

                “Not quite,” Edge added, pointing to the door that stood closed to them on the opposite side of the chamber.

                There was groaning, but they marched forward anyway. They had already come this far, after all.

 

0-0-0

 

Fighting this door, for some reason, felt easier to Rydia than the battles that preceded it. She supposed it had something to do with the doors themselves becoming so much a part of their routine. Not a single one of them succumbed to the trap’s perils; they had become too efficient for that. Instead, the door was torn asunder in a quick and relentless fashion, and all that was left of this long errand into the deep was to discover what the door had been protecting.

                They stepped across the broken threshold and onto dazzling tile that reflected light from the outer room in prismatic colors. Once the five of them had stepped through, lights flared to life around the chamber. Rydia hadn’t set foot in a crystal chamber since Fabul, and the scope of the room took her aback. It was wide and long, and in the center, the crystal dias shimmered like glass. A gleaming crystal sat at the top of the steps, a dark jewel with hues of burgundy and crimson. Unconsciously, they’d all stopped to stare.

                “So _that’s_ what a crystal looks like,” Edge quipped. “It’s been so long, I’d nearly forgotten.”

                They all glared at him, but he shrugged innocently.

                Cecil took a deep breath and walked to the dias, climbing the steps. “This is what we came for,” he said, reaching down to take the crystal.    

                Once it was in his hands, the lights in the chamber extinguished themselves and the only source of light was the crystal itself.

                “We should leave before Golbez decides to come in after us,” Rosa said anxiously, leading the way out of the crystal chamber with quick steps and back to the rope bridge.

                Rydia eyed the crystal Cecil was holding, thinking this had been too easy. For all of this cave’s traps and perils, retrieving the crystal itself had been simple…

                Moments later, she cursed herself for thinking such thoughts. The cavern began to rumble around them, the loose stones on the ground clattering into oblivion in the chasm beneath them. They ran for the rope bridge, but a sharp jolt in the bedrock snapped the bridge from its tethers on the opposite side of the room. The bridge fell limply against the cliff face nearest them, the dull clunks of wood echoing back at them.

“We can still use the ropes!” Edge shouted, but it did them little good trying to reach them with the rocks falling down from the ceiling and on either side of the room.

                “Another trap?” Rosa nearly screamed.

                “Go back to the crystal chamber!” Cecil shouted, and they all bolted for the doorway. They never reached it. Three violent tremors toppled the doorframe, burying it in a pile of boulders too massive to move.

                They slid to a halt, hopping out of the way of falling debris.

                “Cecil!” Rosa cried out as she dropped to the ground, pulling Rydia down with her.

                Rydia shielded her face from a shower of stones and pebbles and searched for the source of Rosa’s fear. At first, she thought it was just the rockslide Rosa had pulled her down to avoid, but when the dust shifted, she saw what had the white mage worried, and her own stomach dropped. A menacing figure was clawing its way toward them, half encased in solid rock and dragging its prison with it. It was part of the wall and it _was_ the wall. Skeletal hands raked the air and dug into the stone floor, pulling and tearing itself toward the five humans.

                “You have got to be kidding me,” Edge muttered, seeing it at the same time.

                “They’ve managed to enchant an entire _wall?_ ” Rosa said in disbelief, scrambling to her feet and readying her bow.

                “It means to crush us here and stop us from escaping,” Cecil growled, bringing his shield to bear.

                “Easy to get in, difficult to get out,” Edge intoned, avoiding another stone falling from the ceiling, “These dwarves have a twisted sense of humor.”

                “How do we stop it?” Rydia wanted to know, glancing behind them and seeing an insubstantial length of footing.

                Cecil’s gaze followed hers and then returned to the trap before them. “We break it down,” he concluded a little reluctantly.

                _Break it down?_ Rydia wondered, staring the trap up and down, searching for some sort of weakness. The skeletal grin of the creature affixed to the rock was horrifying. She kept her eyes on it, at the deep sockets in its skull that glowed blue with enchantment and an ancient, cold menace. Its stone ribs protruded just enough for its arms to pivot in their shoulder joints, and the wall had crept just close enough to swipe at them with its sharp fingertips.

                The creature attacked, and all of them threw themselves to the floor, avoiding a swipe that sliced through a section of the wall to their right, showering them with rocks.

                Rydia was thinking, rapidly thinking, how to tear apart a solid wall of rock. She had none of the weapons that Cecil and Kain had for piercing, nor did she have Edge’s skill for throwing. Leviathan would wash them all into the abyss, and fire would do nothing to the rock itself that magma already couldn’t.

                Cecil rushed forward, swinging an axe in his hand. He dodged the wall’s reaching arm, and ducked beneath it, planting a firm hit where the creature was anchored to the rock. A sickening crunch resounded, like old bones breaking, and the creature bellowed, clutching at itself with both arms. Cecil quick-stepped and parried when the wall retaliated with a hissing screech, and was knocked to his knees. He crawled away through the creature’s blind spot, as it groped for the stone floor for purchase, dragging itself forward.

                Kain covered Cecil’s retreat, a lance in his hands. He jabbed at the creature’s breastbone, blocking the creature’s arms while it lashed out at him. Edge, in turn, pelted the creature’s ribs with darts, distracting the wall as flies distract a much larger beast.

                This tactic proved successful for a few minutes, as the efforts of the three men had caused the wall to stay rooted in place. But another sudden tremor in the cavern caused Kain to stumble, and the creature took its chance, swatting the dragoon like he was made of air. The knight slammed into the adjacent wall, a few snaps and dull thuds accompanying the impact while he tumbled lifelessly to the ground.

                Rydia trusted Rosa to set the dragoon to rights again, despite the damage she was sure he had just endured. She had worked out something of a plan, and as the creature continued to pull itself closer, and their room to move decreased, she knew she had to set it into motion.

                She began to summon, stepping far back from the battle itself, and allowing herself time to concentrate.

                She hadn’t called upon Mist in a while, and she had forgotten how much she’d missed the feel of cold dew on her skin and the cold fury of mountain valley air. Every time she summoned the dragon of her home’s namesake, she felt for a moment, that she _was_ home.

                Mist materialized beside her, nearly invisible in her concealing vapors. Ancient eyes looked at Rydia and then at the situation at hand.

                _What would you have me do?_ Rydia heard the question in her mind.

                _Drench every inch of rock,_ she answered.

                Mist surged forward, her serpentine neck extended to show her open maw at its end. Cold mist poured forth, coating the wall before them with water, penetrating into even the slightest cracks. Rydia smiled grimly, hoping the next part of her plan would be as successful. She dismissed Mist to the Feymarch, and began another incantation. This one twisted ice and arctic air together into a single formidable attack. Rydia unleashed Blizzaga on the wall, and ever droplet of water left by Mist’s attack crystallized, expanding in the cracks, and sloughing whole sheets of rock from the face of the wall. The creature screamed in fury, and Cecil ran forward again, taking the creature’s distraction as his opening. He swung his axe at the creature’s right arm, and found that it was so brittle from cold, that it snapped at the elbow joint; clattering to the cave floor.

                Kain had been restored by Rosa’s magic at this point, and had joined Cecil in the melee. The wall had become furious, lashing out wildly with its remaining arm at the both of them. Kain succeeded in gauging a deep hole in the creature’s breastbone, cracking several ribs with it. The creature screamed, and raised its arm.

Rydia sensed it before she saw it—the salvo of rocks falling from the ceiling that the creature had summoned. A shout of warning had barely escaped her lips before one of the rocks struck Cecil’s shoulder, and Rydia clenched her eyes shut at the sound of it, the horrible crack of bones, as he fell to the ground with a cry of pain.

                Rosa was chanting again, and so was Rydia, trying her best to block out the sounds of Cecil’s agonizing groans. She summoned Mist once more, halting the wall’s advance with a sheet of frigid water that clung to it like early morning frost. Blizzaga was Rydia’s second reply, and she focused the attack where she felt it would do the most damage—right at the heart of the creature. Its stone bones splintered and cracked, the collarbone slumping and the left shoulder joint bursting apart. The wall had nothing left but its fearsome skeletal face, and that, too Edge put an end to—picking up Cecil’s fallen axe and throwing it with all his weight into the creature’s skull. The axe wedged itself into the wall itself, crushing the creature’s skull against it, and extinguishing the lights in its cruel eye sockets. With the creature’s demise, the wall itself began to crumble, stones seeping from cracks like blood from a wound until the entire barrier shattered into dust.

                The five of them coughed the dirt and debris from their mouths, and waited for the dust to settle before determining if the threat was truly gone. The cavern around them was still rumbling ominously and there were still stones shaking loose. Cecil was slowly climbing to his feet, almost gingerly, as if the pain from his crushed side was not totally forgotten despite Rosa’s healing.

                “Now what?” Kain asked grimly.

                “Help me with these ropes,” Edge ordered, striding over to the cliff’s side and tugging at what remained of the rope bridge. Cecil and Kain seemed to catch on at once. The three of them pulled the ropes and the planks connected to it up onto the ledge. It was in disrepair, but as Rydia watched, she realized it wasn’t the bridge that Edge wanted—but the ropes themselves.      

                None of this did much to instill any faith in her that they were going to escape this place alive. She still had the uncomfortable doubt that they would be trapped in this dark place forever.

                Edge glanced up at her after a few minutes with a much put-upon expression on his face. “You could be helping us, you know,” he informed her.

                She arched a brow and frowned, disliking the bossiness in his tone. This was madness, anyway. Regardless, she did feel guilty about doing nothing, so she eventually knelt down beside them, inspecting the tangled mess that had become of the bridge.

                “Start pulling out the planks,” Cecil told her a little more gently.

                She nodded, and assisted the men with whatever strange plan they’d hatched. Rosa also joined a few moments later, and after several minutes of swearing, tugging, and struggling with unruly knots, they had amassed a large coil of rope. Edge took two ends and began to measure lengths, doubling the rope back on itself a few times, and then slipping more rope in and around into intricate knots that Rydia had never seen before. When he was finished, they had a sturdy braid of rope with a large lasso at the end.

                She watched as Edge then took the rope and found some space, tossing the end with the lasso so that it hooked around the remains of a pillar on the opposite side of the chasm. He cinched the rope tight, and then pulled hard, testing its strength. Satisfied, he then searched for something to anchor the rope to on their side of the room. Not much had survived the rock fall or the trap wall, but Edge managed to find a heavy enough rock embedded in the cave floor to tether their end of the rope. What first had appeared like a hopeless situation, now showed promise. They had a rope suspended across the gap that could bring them to safety.

                Rydia sighed with relief, so glad that they wouldn’t be entombed with the crystal all these miles south of sunlight.

                “We can escape,” Rosa said her thoughts aloud. “Where do we go from here?”

                “To Giott,” Cecil replied. “We undertook this mission for the dwarves; they can decide what’s to be done with their crystal once we arrive.”

                Rydia looked at Cecil, and then her gaze fell on Kain. The dragoon was staring at the crystal in Cecil’s keeping with a peculiar sort of eagerness. She blinked, and when she re-opened her eyes, Kain was looking at her instead, the former glint in his eyes erased. He shrugged at her, bewildered by her regard, and she wondered for a split-second if she’d seen anything at all. But she couldn’t fight the cold feeling in her stomach—the feeling that told her something was wrong. She glanced at Edge, and the ninja had a grim expression on his half-covered face. His gray-blue eyes were issuing her a warning that she understood without him having to say a word.

 

                Watch your back.


	23. Turn Coat

 

Edge felt he had been laudably patient these past few days. He had kept to himself on the downward journey to the crystal chamber. He had said nothing since their near brush with death and subsequent burial; and as he glared at the back of the dragoon in front of him, he felt that someone ought to award him a medal for saying _nothing_ in the past several hours. Because, by the twin moons, he'd dearly wanted to. The dragoon's diamond studded armor reflected the dim cavern light like small prisms, and it played tricks on the eyes. It seemed the man was slipping in and out of the shadows—much as he had been slipping in and out of lucidity.

Edge glanced at Rosa who was clutching onto Cecil's arm, fighting fatigue. Her quiver of arrows was nearly depleted, and the cape she wore was flecked with blood, some of it, her own. The paladin beside her was doing admirably at keeping the both of them upright; despite, Edge was sure, the stifling weight of his armor. How he was able to persevere and say so little, was a form of masochism presently lost on the ninja; but he was sure that the moment he said his piece, the paladin would not be so sparing in his words. The man's patience couldn't possibly be _that_ complete.

And then there was Rydia, who was keeping pace at Edge's right, looking ahead with a far-off gaze. Her lips were pursed into a frown, and she had one brow angled in concentration as her thoughts traveled paths he knew not where. Perhaps she was struggling with the same plight as himself; trying to determine the best time to pull aside their unflagging leader and speak the truth to him through that thick head of white hair of his. It was not an undertaking to be done lightly, and Edge had been considering the timing for several hours. Unfortunately, as their ascent quickened, and their proximity to the surface increased, he knew he was running out of opportunities. The peace would soon have to be broken.

They eventually paused to rest in the same warding as they had the day before; and Edge seized the moment, dragging a much put-upon Rydia with him. Cecil looked displeased before Edge had even opened his mouth—which truly begged a different question altogether—if the paladin had suspected this all along, why had he done nothing?

Edge waited until they had walked across half of the chamber, and were out of earshot from the others, before confronting Cecil directly. Edge squared his stance, preparing for conflict, and Rydia was doing a clever job of pretending to blend in with the rocks behind her. That was fine, Edge decided—she was here out of courtesy more than anything. Besides, an army of two was still better than one.

"Something's wrong," he announced, unable to think of anything clever or less obvious. He hoped Cecil wouldn't have him specify, conscious as he was of the dragoon sitting on the other side of the chamber.

Cecil frowned, glancing over Edge's shoulder.

Ah yes, he knew.

"Something?" Cecil queried, and Edge knew what the paladin was doing—admitting suspicion while not admitting his friend's duplicity.

Edge fought back the urge to curse. Why did he have to be so damn loyal?

"You know exactly who and exactly what," he answered with careful precision. Edge hadn't had to think this much about his words in _ages_ and he found the entire exercise exhausting _._

"What proof do you have?" Cecil asked instead, looking haggard, and very much older than he was.

"He's been out of his mind since the moment we entered this cave—and even before," Edge explained, half-expecting an interruption. "He has lapses in his memory, lapses in judgment—you've seen it yourself, how he's struggled through battle like a sleeper. He's put us into danger more times than I can count in the last few hours alone, and he's been _talking_ to himself, Cecil. Last I was aware, that was a symptom of insanity."

Cecil listened to all of this gravely, but he wasn't entirely moved. "What would you have me do?"

" _Something_!" Edge hissed, glancing momentarily at Rydia, whose eyes had become wide with anxiety. "Golbez had his hooks in the man before—what's to stop him from doing it again?"

"You think Golbez could reach him from this far?" Cecil asked with a cold laugh, running his fingers through his long, tangled hair.

"If he's as good a mage as you say he is, I don't see why his influence couldn't reach this far," Edge pointed out. "What's to stop Kain from turning on us again? What's to stop him from taking the crystal from us and returning to his former master?"

Cecil's eyes blazed with anger, and Edge took a quick step back, momentarily afraid the man would strike him.

"He would have already done so, if that were the case," Cecil said darkly, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword for balance. Edge eyed him carefully, wary that he might actually draw his weapon.

"Or is it possible that he still needs us?" Edge asked, trying to be careful with his words again. "Our chances of escaping this place alive are better if we are five, and not one. What if he's waiting until our guard is down—when we're nearly free of this place before he plants his attack?"

"He is a dragoon," Cecil replied, as if this meant something. "He is one of the best knights I have ever had the privilege to serve with. If he were to make a move, he would have already done so. He was the first to cross the ropes we tethered to escape the crystal chamber—why didn't he cut them once he was across and leave us there to die?"

Edge had to admit, the man had him on logic there, but the fact remained—there was more evidence stacked against the dragoon than there was to vindicate him.

"He's dangerous, Cecil. As an ally, he is an excellent sword arm, but he's been compromised, and that makes him doubly dangerous. He's not himself."

"What do you suggest I do? Leave him here on suspicion alone?" Cecil bristled, standing to his full height. Edge despised it when the knight pulled rank on him in this fashion—reminding him that he was out-classed in both height and stature. Edge flicked his gaze to Rydia, who was pursing her lips again, afraid to step between the two of them. His gaze met hers, and she had a fleeting look of panic that he was daring to pull her into this—but truth be told, he needed her now. He needed that slight but steely resolve that she had when speaking to the paladin. Cecil had a soft spot for her, and Edge intended to exploit that now.

"Rydia? Do you have something to add?" Cecil asked, keeping his voice blessedly level. Anything more, and Edge was convinced Rydia might bolt in the opposite direction.

She looked back at Edge, hoping for his support, and he gave it with a nod. She cleared her throat and her blue eyes turned on Cecil.

"He's not wrong, Cecil," she said, and her voice sounded dry and hesitant. "I've noticed the same things, and I've worried about them myself. There were times when I needed Kain's support in battle, and he was too lost in some other world to come to my aid. He mutters to himself when most of us aren't looking—arguments usually. I don't know what about, but it's unsettling all the same. Rosa's been tense as well, sensing most of this, I'm sure," she added, dropping her gaze to the floor at the mention of the white mage.

Edge raised his brows, a little impressed she'd decided to go for Cecil's weak flank at all, and he held his breath, waiting for the other man's response.

Cecil was staring at the summoner, that soft consideration he so often spared on her, but his gaze was also critical. He was weighing her words, thinking through his options. Edge watched the paladin as well, trying to read the man's thoughts through his expressions. He prided himself on his ability to read people, but what he was seeing, was not reinforcing his hopes.

"Cecil, you must do _something,"_ Edge prodded, trying to spur him down the desired course of action.

Cecil sighed, and looked at Edge briefly, and then at the encampment. "He could have betrayed us before, and he did not. He could very well betray us now, and he is not. Until I have an actual reason to leave him behind, I will not. For now, he stays," he said, striding past the two of them. Over his shoulder he called back, "If he gives me reason to think otherwise, I'll be sure to reassess my decision."

Edge watched the paladin return to their encampment; his back straight, and his shoulders squared. He was every inch the captain of Baron as Edge might have expected—and he was very much a fool when it came to matters of the heart.

Edge turned away, and began to pace out of frustration.

"That man would let himself walk into the mouth of a volcano and not question its intentions," he muttered furiously, kicking at loose stones, and then paused to stare at the cavern walls for inspiration.

"What are we going to do?" Rydia asked him, and it took Edge a moment to realize she was honestly asking him and not bemoaning their circumstances.

He looked at her sharply. "Do you have any spells that might be useful?"

She tilted her head slightly to the side, her eyes narrowed. "What did you have in mind?"

0-0-0-0-0

There were several hours between Edge's less than satisfying conversation with Cecil, and where their upward climb had brought them. The Sealed Cave was more annoying trying to climb out of, if possible, than it had been going down.

And then there was the matter of Kain, who had become so reclusive, and so scarce on words, that he had practically ceased to exist.

Edge had been waiting for another opportunity to present itself to take care of _that_ particular problem—he and Rydia both. The difficulty was Cecil, who now paid an obscene amount of attention to the dragoon; so much so, that it was almost impossible to find the man alone. Edge had been seeking ways to separate the two; and at last, the cavern was cooperating by providing just the right combination of blind corners for the task, and a useful assortment of fiends. Edge had finally found exactly what he needed—a distraction.

Their battles had become predictable, formulaic, and Edge knew what Kain would do before he even took to the air. He knew where the dragoon sought his landings, where there were holes in his defenses—and he knew where is armor was weakest. After he'd slain a few pesky fiends just beyond Cecil's line of sight, and had taken great pains to ensure that Kain would stray to his side of the battle, Edge made his move. He stepped inside Kain's blind spot, and aimed for the chink in his armor at the base of his skull, planting a quick and decisive blow to a particularly useful cluster of nerves. Kain crumpled instantly, his knees buckling and his armor hitting the ground in a series of jarring metal clinks and thuds.

Rydia had finished her magic casting and was now looking in Edge's direction with a nervous look on her face. Edge flicked his eyes meaningfully toward where Cecil and Rosa had last been, and Rydia seemed to understand, serving as his look-out.

"We don't have much time," she said quietly, bending down to check on Kain, who was breathing in shallow gasps. "What did you do to him?" she asked, raising her eyes to his, with a touch of admiration mingled with concern.

Edge smirked, pleased by her regard. "I have my secrets," he replied, stifling the urge to boast about just how familiar he was with the pressure points of the body and their various uses.

She rolled her eyes, and he wondered if he should make a game of counting how many times a day he could succeed in making her do so, until he was distracted by her soft chanting.

Her eyes were closed, and Edge took a moment to gaze on her. She was maddeningly adorable, with her elfin features, long lashes, and wild green hair. He could never move past how she communed with such power, or associated with such legendary beings, and remained as innocent as she was. How did she seem to simply escape the gravity of the world about her, to rise above it, without leaving it completely? But beneath her skin she was very much like the underworld itself—a hidden layer of fire beneath a surface of solid resolve. And then, on the other hand, she was also blessedly naïve; and he had come so close—

She completed her incantation, and Edge's eyes returned to their prone companion on the cavern floor, sleeping soundly.

Rydia rocked back on her heels, sighing. "That sleep spell should hold for an hour at least," she informed him.

He nodded, pulling the dragoon's arms backwards and dragging him to a more secluded area.

"Damn, he's heavy," he complained, as he yanked the armor-clad man behind a rock column.

Rydia volunteered to lift the knight's feet, and she nearly lost her footing as she stumbled under his weight. Edge did his best not to laugh, as he was sure she wouldn't appreciate it; and he _did_ appreciate her assistance.

"Do you think he'll be alright?" she asked, once they had left him hidden among the rocks. "He is defenseless, after all."

Edge had never been fond of leaving anyone to die without a means to defend themself; but he was also rather much fonder of having a world to return to, than he was preoccupied over the safety of one man.

"He's fully armed, and we've cleared this area of fiends," Edge reasoned, "If he's truly as great a dragoon as everyone claims, I'm sure he'll be fine."

Rydia was looking at him as though he were mad, and she had that guilty look on her face as if she'd just made herself party to something that went against her moral code.

"It needed to be done," he reminded her, assuaging her guilt with duty. They didn't have the luxury of time to argue.

They returned to the open chamber, and with no small amount of luck, Rosa and Cecil had only just ventured back to see how he and Rydia had fared.

"Are any of you injured?" Rosa asked, looking them up and down.

Cecil's eyes, instead, went straight to Edge's. "Where's Kain?" he asked.

Thank goodness for masks, Edge decided, because for some reason, the paladin's gaze brought with it a compelling need to tell the truth-and he was not about to do _that._

"He said he was going to make sure the path behind us was clear," he lied, keeping the inflection from his voice.

"There's been more than enough time for that," Cecil argued, looking more irritated than usual.

Edge shrugged, hoping it came off as bored and not dishonest. "I'm not his keeper, Cecil. Perhaps he's had another relapse."

"That's what he told us, anyway," Rydia, blessedly, chimed in.

Cecil took his measure of the both of them, not fully satisfied, but too tired to argue with them.

"We'll wait until he returns," Cecil announced, much to Edge's irritation.

"He's a dragoon," Edge angrily pointed out, repeating one of Cecil's earlier assertions. "If he says he's gone to ensure that the area's safe, I'm sure he'll be able to find us if we continue without him."

"What's going on?" Rosa asked, looking from Cecil to the two of them. "Is there something the rest of you know, that I don't?"

Cecil glared at Edge, and with raised brows, the ninja all but dared him to reveal his lack of a plan to his lady love.

"It's nothing, Rosa," Cecil said at last, turning to look at her. "I'd just like to keep the five of us together, if possible."

_If possible._

Edge allowed himself a private victory. They would be moving on without the dragoon after all.

"I suppose he'll have to catch up," Cecil added with a heavy sigh and a dark look, rubbing his temples.

Rosa, in the meanwhile, scrutinized each of them, confusion on her face.

They collected their gear, shouldering their packs, and returned to the main path. Edge exchanged a glance with Rydia, and the summoner's expression was bleak—as if this secret they shared was too much to keep secret for long.

They continued without Kain, and it was all Edge could do to keep from looking over his shoulder, wondering if the knight they'd left behind had regained consciousness and was following them. It wasn't until they had covered a significant distance, that Rosa called them to a halt. Her stance was accusatory, and she had a glint of steel in her eyes.

"Someone explain," she demanded, spreading her long fingers out along her hips, and tapping her right forefinger impatiently.

"Explain what?" Edge replied, attempting a perplexed expression, which Rosa was clearly not accepting.

"It's been hours and we're nearly out of the cave. Where's Kain?" she asked.

Edge saw Rydia grimace out of the corner of his eye, and he frowned, knowing what was to follow.

Cecil took a few steps toward them. "What have the two of you done?" he asked, unable to hide his anger.

Edge let out a long slow breath. "What was necessary," he answered succinctly.

"You did _what?"_ Rosa insisted, frowning, as she looked at Rydia. "Where is he?"

"I'm sure he's fine," Edge objected, not allowing Rydia to buckle under the pressure from Rosa's glare. The white mage turned her icy stare to him, and he had to admit, for a healer, she was a formidable woman.

"I'll ask you again," Cecil said, his tone rising. "What have you done?"

Edge folded his arms across his chest in defiance. "What you should have done, had you been thinking clearly. We can't take him with us. The crystal is too great a temptation.

"So you left him behind?" Cecil asked, incensed. "And, I imagine, wounded as well?"

"Not wounded," Edge protested. "Temporarily senseless."

"And you had a hand in this?" Cecil inquired of Rydia, who was looking guiltier by the minute.

"Cecil, we've come so far, and struggled so much to obtain this final crystal. We had to protect it—even if that meant from one of us," she answered, her voice wavering with anxiety as she tucked a wild tangle of hair behind her ear.

"I was keeping my eye on him!" Cecil snapped, not sure who to blame more.

"Cecil, you've suspected Kain all this time?" Rosa asked, stepping into his line of sight. "Why did you keep all of this from me?"

"Rosa, you have been carrying the five of us through peril and injury, I couldn't have you carry this as well."

She scoffed. "And to think I wasn't already carrying it?" she asked angrily. "Why did you say nothing? We could have come up with another solution than leaving him trussed up in the bowels of the earth. And _you,"_ she added, piercing Rydia with a look, "should have been more forthcoming. This is unlike you to keep so many secrets."

Rydia looked remarkably close to tears, and it was not something Edge wanted to see repeated.

"You should have listened to Rydia when she'd warned you before," Edge retorted, diverting their attention to himself once more.

"You came up with this plan, did you?" Rosa asked.

"What would you have done?" Edge volleyed. "Talked him out of it?"

"I would have ensured that the crystal was beyond his reach," Rosa said. "And that was if Golbez had plans to use him again."

"Golbez already has his scent. You can be sure, if he were to use anyone for such a delicate operation as this, it would be Kain."

"You don't know that for certain," Cecil argued.

"Were you really waiting to find out?" Edge asked.

Cecil set his jaw, anger in his eyes. "He is my friend, and despite recent events, I still owe him my loyalty."

"At the price of the rest of the world?" Edge contested.

"It won't come to that," Cecil answered. "We have to go back for him."

"You can't be serious," Edge said, unable to hide his outrage.

"Very serious," Cecil replied, striding past the ninja in the direction they'd come.

Edge planted his hands on his hips, glaring at the paladin over his shoulder. "I'm not going with you, if that's the case. Give me the crystal and I'll take it out of the cave and you can then decide what to do about Kain. If you insist on holding him by the hand, that's your business. Don't drag the rest of us into it."

Cecil turned, taking a few angry steps toward Edge again. "Good luck surviving the cavern and the underworld on your own," he threatened. "What will you do with no one to support you in battle?"

"You assume I'd go alone?" he asked, looking significantly at Rydia. The summoner crossed her arms, glancing between the two men, her lips parted slightly as if to utter protest.

"I—" she began, looking mortified.

"It's your choice," Rosa interrupted, directing her statement at Rydia. "You can go with him, but wherever Cecil goes, I go."

Edge's frown deepened, knowing his chances of reaching Tomra were less without Rosa's magic.

"Well?" he asked Rydia, who appeared uncomfortable at having to choose a side.

"Is there another way?" Rydia asked, appealing to Cecil.

Cecil sighed, thinking, and then straightened when a voice surprised him from behind.

"Is there another way to where?" Kain inquired, as he stepped into view past a bend in the cavern passage. He was covered in dust and there were small rivulets of blood on his armor trailing away from old puncture wounds. He looked exhausted and more than a little irritated.

The four of them stood mute, staring at the dragoon in disbelief. Edge, for one, felt a wave of defeat rush over him.

Kain stood a few feet away, looking at each of them in confusion. "What happened?" he asked. "I regained consciousness and found that you'd all left. Did no one see me fall?"

Edge clamped his mouth shut while Cecil's accusing eyes fell on him.

"We thought you had gone scouting to clear the area of fiends," Cecil said, perpetuating Edge's lie. "We were about to turn back for you, in fact."

Kain stared at the ground, trying to recollect things that never happened. "Did I say I was?" he was baffled. "Something about this cave—my head. I think it's affecting my memory."

"Perhaps it was the blow to your head," Rosa added acerbically, also glancing at Edge, as she strode toward the dragoon to administer healing if necessary.

"Strange, I thought the doors a nuisance, but apparently this cave has more secrets than we expected," Kain replied, rubbing the back of his neck and wincing.

"You've lost some blood," Rosa observed with the studied concern of a healer, the glow of Libra spreading from her fingertips. "Bats?"

Kain shrugged, hesitant to accept Rosa's ministrations.

"You should let me see to these," she advised, her serious brown eyes boring into Kain's. He clenched his jaw, and finally allowed Rosa to cast her magic, closing his wounds.

Edge was studying him as well—watching his every move. He was surprisingly lucid, the most 'himself' he'd been in days. How convenient—to convince Cecil that all was well, and that their journey could continue un-impeded. Edge knew he would not have another chance to subdue the dragoon, and it heightened his sense of concern. How much good could vigilance be to them now?

"I'm fine, honestly," Kain grumbled. "It took me hours to catch up to you. No one thought it strange that I hadn't re-joined you?"

"I'm sorry, Kain," Cecil offered. "It seems there were miscommunications about where you might have been."

Kain frowned, puzzled. "Miscommunications?"

"You're with us now. It's a conversation we can have another time," Cecil replied.

Kain's puzzled expression deepened, but he finally sighed. "Well, then."

"We should keep moving," Cecil added. "We've wasted enough valuable time by bickering."

Edge couldn't agree more, though he sidled closer to Kain than before, determined not to have any more surprises.

0-0-0-0-0

More hours had passed, and Kain's lucidity had been frighteningly consistent. They reached the final rope—their last chance to be rid of him.

Edge wanted to spring forward and take the lead. He would have control over who was allowed to cross this final gap, but Cecil suddenly took hold of his arm, rooting him in place.

"I'll go first," Cecil said. "Then Rydia, then Kain."

It was unusual for Cecil to manage them, but Edge knew it was all careful maneuvering. Kain had less of a chance of succeeding in stealing the crystal if Rydia was standing beside Cecil; and he wouldn't be tempted to cut the rope if Rosa was still on the other side. And of course, there was also penance—a reminder of who was truly in charge and a not-so-subtle reminder from Cecil that Edge could just as easily be left behind.

They crossed the rope in order and Edge arrived last, catching Cecil's eye just before they exited the cave. The paladin's gray eyes were angry, threatening, and Edge wondered if this was a side of Cecil that he tried so often to suppress. Was thisCecil the dark knight, looking out at him? He wondered if this darker side would be more likely to do what was necessary than the paladin, and if there was a way to make him see reason at all. Why was it the holy ones who always made such grave errors in judgment?

They exited the cave, coming face to face once more with the unbearable heat of the Underworld. Edge felt sweat begin to bead at his temples, and swiped it away.

The air here had always been heavy, had always been stifling on the lungs, but there was also an air of uncertainty now. Edge felt his senses sharpen with razor precision, and he kept his eyes on the dragoon. They had just walked between the still-lit torches in their stone stanchions, when Kain lurched and shook his head. In the span of a heartbeat, Edge had already drawn his blades, katana in one hand, kunai in the other.

Cecil turned at the sound, glancing at the weapons in Edge's hands and then at Kain, who was staring at his feet as though he couldn't recollect how they had gotten him to where he stood.

"What is it?" Cecil demanded, taking a few cautious steps toward his friend. Kain did not respond, swaying slightly to a pulse that had overwhelmed his own; and sensing that something was amiss, Rosa and Rydia also turned. Their twin looks of concern were pronounced but not unexpected, but only Rydia had the presence of mind to react. Her blue eyes found Edge's and never left, as she side-stepped Kain until she stood at his back, joining Edge, and completing the circle around their senseless ally. It was moments like these, Edge was glad he had chosen to reach out to her over the last few weeks. She might not have the quickness or strength of a warrior, but she had other talents, and she had proven time and again how useful they could be when she was vigilant.

"… _Return to me, Kain, my pawn. Deliver to me the Crystal…"_

"Golbez!" Cecil snarled, searching the area for the dismembered voice. After a moment, he looked again at Kain, and Edge saw a brief flash of panic cross the paladin's face. "Kain!" he shouted, reacting to a struggle in his friend that Edge couldn't see.

"Don't listen to him—resist him!" Rosa frantically pled, appearing as though she were torn between wanting to run to the dragoon or to nock an arrow to her bowstring.

Kain stumbled, shook his head, and looked around.

"It's all right," he mumbled, slurring his words together. "I'm—back in control of myself."

Edge looked at Cecil, but the paladin was too intent on his friend to respond. Instead, it was Rydia who replied, chanting so softly that Edge heard it only because he was standing so close to her.

"Kain," Cecil appealed, raising his hands, and taking a few steps forward. "Put down your weapons."

"Cecil—he doesn't control me," Kain replied, sounding both hurt and confused.

"He doesn't know who he is anymore!" Edge snapped. "Cecil, he's lying."

Edge saw Cecil hesitate at the crucial moment, and out of that hesitation, Kain made his move.

In the span of mere moments, several things happened at once—Kain had lunged at Cecil with a sword in his hand, drawn faster than anyone could prevent; Edge had thrown a dart that never met its mark; and Rydia's well-intentioned spell ricocheted off of an unknown barrier and struck her instead, freezing her in place.

Still trying to figure out how Kain had deflected his knife, Edge was two steps too late from stopping Kain from cutting the pouch that held the crystal from Cecil's side. Instead, he lunged for the back of the dragoon's knee; but the same barrier than had thrown his first attack far askew, nearly broke his arm as he went to execute his strike. His sword was diverted wildly to the left, snapping his wrist at a painful angle that he felt all the way up to his elbow. He fell back, watching as Kain, oblivious to almost being hamstrung, scooped up the crystal in its leather pouch and took a few steps back, brandishing his sword at both Cecil and Rosa. Cecil's sword was in his hand, the blade bright and sinister in the light from the torches, as Rosa reached over her shoulder for an arrow where there was none. Her brows drew together in consternation, as she looked to Cecil for aide. They all regarded their former companion with wary glances, each of them tense, each of them prepared to do battle.

Suddenly, Cecil rushed forward, attempting to meet Kain head-on, but he never had the chance. The same barrier that had thwarted Edge and diverted Rydia's spell, threw the paladin backwards as well, his sword knocked to the porous ground with a dull clatter.

"Bastard!" Edge shouted, knowing they were a hairsbreadth from losing the crystal if no one could lay a finger on the dragoon.

"Why are you doing this, Kain? Don't let him control you!" Rosa screamed. Her brown eyes were flooded with worry and compassion—and terror.

" _You underestimate the strength of my abilities,"_ Golbez taunted them. _"I had but slackened your friend's leash, waiting for the proper moment to pull it taut. With this final Crystal, the Tower of Babil will be made complete. Come, Kain!"_

"Kain, don't listen to him," Cecil threatened, keeping his voice menacingly low.

"The Crystals are all assembled," Kain answered automatically, like a sleeper. "We can open the way to the moon at last."

" _Yes, come, Kain."_

They watched with astonishment, as a bright matrix of light surrounded Kain, stirring up a great wind. The wind blew out the torches, and with their extinguishing, the entrance to the Sealed Cave shut behind them. Amidst the rumbling and shaking, Kain was whisked out of sight, vanishing in a clap of thunder and Golbez's cruel laugh.

When the magic had ceased, there was only four of them standing at the entrance to the Sealed Cave. The four of them without the Crystal.

"Dammit!" Edge cursed, retrieving his deflected kunai, and nursing his wounded arm.

Rosa's hands were over her mouth, holding back grief, and Cecil stood beside her, his jaw clenched with anger. A few moments later, Rydia had pulled herself free of her Stop spell, and teetered, massaging her temples.

Cecil began to pace, muttering curses, and Edge speared him with a glare.

"So much for waiting," he said bitterly.

"Keep your remarks to yourself, Edge!" Cecil shot back, clenching and un-clenching his fists.

"We could have left him behind and none of this would have happened!" Edge replied angrily.

"We would have been leaving him to die," Cecil snarled. "If we had at least reached Tomra, we could have left him in safe company-"

Edge wanted to laugh. "You really thought Golbez would wait that long—would wait until it was convenient for us? _Think,_ Cecil!"

"I _did_ think. I thought of the welfare of my friend!"

"A friend with a fatal flaw!" Edge returned. "You thought he was 'redeemed' when he escaped Golbez the first time? A man doesn't escape that much bitterness by sheer accident."

"What do you know of redemption?" Cecil snapped. "You, who would leave another man to die, and whose moral code seems to reside far from the center!"

Edge took a few steps forward, feeling his magic sparking through his veins.

"You know _nothing_ about my convictions," Edge spat, "It must be so easy for you, who never had to watch your own kingdom burn to the ground! Now the rest of the world will suffer because _you_ were too concerned for your friend's 'welfare'!"

"Silence!" Rydia commanded, her voice twined with magic—that layer of unavoidable authority that superimposed her own.

Edge intended to tell her right then and there to stay out of it, but when he opened his mouth, no sound escaped it. Cecil was similarly afflicted.

Rydia dropped her hands, and looked at the both of them fiercely. "Now _listen,"_ she said, shaking with pent up emotion. "Whether or not we had left him behind, whether or not he had caught up to us, and whether or not we had reached Tomra; Golbez would have hunted us relentlessly with or without Kain's help."

Rosa reached out for Cecil's arm, gazing up at him with sympathetic eyes.

Edge listened to this, wanting to shout with fury, and all the more furious because he couldn't. He and Cecil continued to glare at each other, breathing hard, ready to fight.

Rosa eventually began to chant, but Rydia interrupted her. "Rosa, don't."

Rosa opened her eyes, and glanced at the summoner. "Rydia, you don't mean to keep them like this, do you?" she asked, perplexed.

Rydia pursed her lips. "It will wear off in its own time," she informed them with an appraising eye. "Hopefully long enough for the two of them to not want to _kill_ each other," she added, glaring.

It was Edge's turn to roll his eyes, sighing, with no sound accompanying it.

"We should return to the airship," Rosa said to Cecil. "There's nothing we can do now but pursue them as we have from the beginning. I know what you would like to say and do, and I don't blame you—to have Kain's mind wrenched from us again—I want to do the same. But now is not the time. We have a job to do, and people to answer to."

Cecil looked at Rosa, anger and guilt written all over his face, but all Edge wanted was for the man to accept the blame. It was _his_ trust that had brought them to this.

"The odds were never much in our favor to begin with," Rydia added quietly, as she walked away from the torches and toward the crevice in the rock that led out into the basin. She turned to face all of them. "I'm still willing to go wherever this path leads us. What about the rest of you?"

Edge waged a war within himself. Was it even worth it to continue? Should he leave these people to their own fate and return to his people to wait out the outcome of the war? Or did he stay, and find out where all of this intrigue led?

Rydia was still waiting for the rest of them to make up their minds, and when her blue eyes fell on his, he knew. As much as he disliked her argument and as much as he was furious that she had taken the liberty of silencing him of everything he had to say—he wouldn't allow her, a slip of a girl, to make him feel any less of a man for not following his instincts. If she would wade out into danger and peril unknowable with all of her bright-eyed innocence, he wouldn't let her do so alone.

He stepped forward, feigning nonchalance. Her expression was shocked and bemused when he came to stand beside her. Was it exasperation that he saw there as well? He smiled grimly, and then placed a dark look on Cecil, who, by all accounts, finally seemed ready to accept the truth that had been told to him all along—his friend was a traitor. They had lost more ground to Golbez today, but Edge would be damned if that wasn't put to rights.

Cecil and Rosa exchanged glances and joined them a moment later. It was decided, then. They were tethered together for their own reasons.

For Cecil, this meant justice.

For Edge—retribution.


	24. The Tower Awakens

There were few sounds so profound as silence. It was a useful companion for the introspective mind that craved solitude; but a curse when there had been time enough for introspection--when doubts had whittled themselves to obsession.  
Many long hours had passed since they'd left the Sealed Cave miles behind them, buried in the haze of shimmering underworld heat. They had finally reached the path that cut through the plateau leading to Tomra, and Rydia glanced at her companions, knowing that the effects of her spell had worn off long enough for someone to have broached the matter at hand. But in the aftermath of Kain's second betrayal--no one seemed to want to.  
She wondered if she had made a mistake in using her magic upon her friends. On Cecil’s account, she felt terrible, as she knew his silence was spent in contrition for everything that had transpired since they’d left the caverns. But on Edge’s account, she found herself wondering why she’d never cast upon him sooner. She had seen the battle being fought inside his head as his expressions flipped from one to the next; as he no doubt conjured up all the words he had wanted to say but could not. She decided, in the end, that it had been her only recourse--the only acceptable option to prevent tension from turning to violence. Even after the spell's affects had worn off, he had remained stubbornly silent; and, she noticed, nursing his right arm, which he refused to have Rosa mend--though she doubted if the mage would bother.  
What would become of the four of them once they arrived in Giott's court? Would there be a parting of the ways? Would Cecil and Edge decide to tolerate each other long enough to carry on? She strode along the rocky pathway, trying not to allow her worries to gnaw at her.  
The world could be doomed, but they were still walking forward. Whether this was only the calm before the storm, or the wings of hope that propelled them onward, she wasn't sure. For all she knew, they could be venturing to their deaths...  
They finally stepped out from under the plateau's mighty shadow with Tomra only a few miles ahead. Rosa brought them to a halt, her hair sticking to her forehead in unruly strands.  
"Water," she croaked out, pulling her canteen from her side and removing the stopper from the spout. She lifted it to her lips, but only a few scant drops issued forth. Rosa sighed deeply, and Rydia stepped forward, understanding immediately.  
She had chanted the incantation often enough, that she barely had to think on it anymore. She spoke water out of the air, allowing her hands to be the basin, and let the life giving liquid flow between her fingers and into Rosa's canteen. She continued to chant, the melody of the spell rising and falling like a miniature tide, as she conjured more water into her hands, siphoning it into the canteens of the others.  
When she had finished, she received appreciative looks from her companions, before she set off to find a place to rest her feet. The ground was still wildly uneven and strewn with boulders, and Rydia tucked herself away, facing the flat field where Tomra stood. She had had enough of the pointed looks, the guarded expressions, and the unspoken arguments. She needed time to straighten out her own thoughts, her own guilt. Had she turned Cecil against her for choosing to leave Kain behind? Did he despise her for intervening after Kain's desertion? She took a few swigs of water from her canteen, and it felt overwhelming on her parched throat. She coughed, and her throat burned uncomfortably at the aggravation. She sipped more cautiously the second time, allowing herself to savor the cool taste of the water on her tongue, and after a time, found herself reviving from the severe heat.  
She gazed at Tomra, and then to the north. How far was the Tower from here? Had Kain already reached it? How long would it take for Golbez to set his plan into motion now that he had obtained all of the crystals? What was Golbez going to do with them--with all of that raw power?  
She stared until her eyes lost focus in the endless mirage of the magma sea that glowed on the horizon, never too far away. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since the four of them had paused to rest, but the moment she had made up her mind to return to the others, she sensed someone approaching from behind. She glanced up and saw Edge appear at her right, sitting down beside her without a word. His presence startled her, and she glanced behind her--how long had he been there? She drew her brows together, glancing at him sideways, but his regard was far afield, and not on her. Eventually she relaxed, and they eased into a companionable silence. It was several minutes before he finally spoke.  
“You’re worried about what’s going to happen next?” he asked.  
“I’m worried that we don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Rydia answered, staring at her hands in her lap. “What will Golbez use the Crystals for? What are we even still doing?”  
Edge looked at her very seriously for a moment. “Out of everyone involved in this up till now, I would have thought that the three of you would know.”  
Rydia laughed. “Hardly,” she replied. “And now that Kain has defected—again,” she faltered, feeling a wave of despair creep into her throat, choking off her words. She felt his hand on her left shoulder, and stiffened, looking sharply at Edge. He was looking back at her evenly; no guile, no tell-tale smirk on his face, and he held up his other hand as a gesture of peace.  
“It’s okay,” he told her, pulling gently until she relaxed and leaned against his shoulder.  
She felt her heart flutter unexpectedly, and strove to ignore it.  
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.  
She heard his sharp exhale, what might have been a laugh, and she craned her neck to look up at him. “Who else is going to comfort you?” he asked simply.  
Comfort, she mused. Was this truly comfort, to be with the man she so often disdained? The man who had turned all her most recent decisions on their heads? She rested her cheek against the sleeve of his shirt, against the hardness of his arm, and she wondered at it.  
Here they were in the belly of the earth, the crystal lost to them, betrayed again, and she was sitting beside the man she wasn’t sure she understood—his arm around her, and she leaning against him. What were they doing?  
“I’m scared,” she admitted, after several minutes of silence.  
“I don’t blame you,” he answered.  
“What, you’re not scared?” she asked curiously.  
He didn’t answer for a moment, thinking. “I prefer to be scared only of what I know, not what I don’t understand.”  
She considered his answer. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she decided.  
He laughed quietly. “I’m not afraid of the unknown—just wary of it. The future isn't always bad.”  
“This is bad,” Rydia concluded.  
“This is problematic,” he corrected her. “There’s a difference.”  
She shifted so that she could look at him again. “How so?”  
“We can still figure out a plan,” he answered, staring off into the rocky terrain as if he  
were doing just that.  
“A plan,” she repeated, trying not to laugh. “Is everything so simple with you?” she asked.  
He smiled grimly. “He has to have a weakness somewhere; and I dearly hope it's Kain, because I'd very much like to thrash him.”  
Rydia couldn't help but roll her eyes. “And you’re not just telling me this to make me feel better?” she wanted to know.  
“Maybe a little,” he admitted with a small smile.  
A strange thought crossed Rydia’s mind, and she found herself wanting an answer. “Is this how you comfort all of the women who’ve ever graced your company?” she asked wryly.  
He pulled away, looking at her anew. “You wound me,” he announced.  
“Why don’t you ever comfort Rosa?” she asked, sitting up straighter, and arching a brow. “Or have the conversations with Cecil that you have with me?”  
“They have each other,” he said and frowned, as if this was obvious.  
“So what am I, your project?” she inquired.  
He flashed her a wicked grin, his gray eyes sparkling with mischief. “Someone has to make you their project,” he replied.  
She pursed her lips, a none-too-pleased expression on her face. “I’m fine—you don’t have to go out of your way,” she declared.  
He sighed, resting his hands on his knees. “You are a difficult woman.”  
“Oh?” she asked with an arched brow. “Because I can take care of myself?” she said, inching herself away from him.  
He glanced at her, skeptically. “Sulking by yourself is your idea of ‘fine’?”  
“I was perfectly fine before you interrupted my thoughts," she protested. "This isn’t some way for you to worm yourself into my—affections, is it?” she asked.  
“Depends,” he answered. “Is it working?”  
She shoved him away in disgust. “Not at all. Keep your sympathy,” she retorted, standing up and striding away.  
She walked until he was lost to view, and when she finally stopped to take several steadying breaths, she realized she had stumbled upon Rosa who was sitting alone.  
The mage had tear stains on her dirt-covered face, and she looked up at Rydia with accusing eyes. Rydia stood still, staring at this version of her friend, a version that startled her.  
"Rosa?" she asked quietly.  
Rosa hastily wiped the tears from her face and attempted a smile. "Rydia, I--wasn't expecting you," she said.  
Rydia frowned, scanning the area with her eyes. "Where's Cecil?"  
Rosa flicked her gaze to the left and right, feigning to search for him herself. "He said he needed to clear his head. He wanted time alone," she added with a stifled sob.  
"Do you want time alone?" Rydia asked, studying Rosa with concern.  
Rosa nodded, and then, thinking better of it, shook her head.  
Rydia looked away, wondering how to proceed, and then glanced at Rosa again, before walking over and kneeling down beside her. "Were you thinking about Kain?" she asked softly, keeping her eyes on the ground.  
She heard Rosa conceal another sob with a laugh. "I know--" Rosa said with force. "I know your opinions of him."  
Rydia caught Rosa's gaze for a long moment, and felt a pang of guilt.  
" A part of my mind understands why you would do what you did--why you would leave him behind," she continued, looking away. "But please, don't judge Cecil too harshly. He was our friend, a man with a life of good and noble deeds. Do you judge him solely on the few and not the whole?"  
"Rosa, I--" Rydia tried to interrupt her.  
"I couldn't take arms against him--I couldn't," Rosa said instead, staring at her own hands as if they had betrayed her. "He has always been there to clear my path, he and Cecil. To see him in danger, even from himself... Even when I was in the Tower of Zot, and he was my captor, I saw glimmers. Forgive me, but I--I refuse to believe he is lost to us, even now. The magic of Golbez is powerful, and I--" she faltered again, and looked at Rydia seriously. "I wish I could have your objectivity, Rydia," she told her, and Rydia felt her throat constrict. "I wish I had your strength to be able to do what is necessary. We're at war--and I need to stop seeing it as a simple journey, as some path to somewhere else, where everything makes sense again, where the people I lost are made whole again. This is a battle for life or death. How many lives have we endangered by letting him escape with the crystal?"  
Rydia felt tears pool in her eyes, and reached out to grip Rosa's hands with her own.  
She had no words to comfort her friend. She had no recrimination and no answers. Instead, she sat beside Rosa as the tears took over, and her friend buried her head in her hands--overwhelmed by a deep and abiding grief.  
It was a long while before Cecil returned and Rosa had regained her composure. Edge had materialized once again as if out of thin air, looking at Rydia with bemusement, which she promptly returned with a scowl. There was no discussion to take place before they left the plateau behind them, continuing toward Agart.  
They had almost arrived, when Rosa finally spoke, breaking this second silence.  
"Cecil, that sword--" she said, pointing to the ancient scabbard tucked into Cecil's belt beside his other weapon.  
Rydia's eyes followed Rosa's finger, and Cecil glanced down as well, as if forgetting the sword was there. His hand brushed against the hilt, remembering.  
"There was something--" he said, clearing his throat. "--something that I remembered. The sword reminded me."  
"The sword you received from Mount Ordeals?" Rosa inquired.  
He looked ahead. "Ever since I climbed that mountain and endured the Trial, something has been clawing at the back of my mind," he said. "Something I'm meant to do."  
Rydia looked at their leader as perplexed as she was sure Rosa felt. What did he mean by that?  
"It's nothing but a puzzle for me to figure out, Rosa," Cecil assured her, looking at her over his shoulder.  
Rosa gazed back at him, questioning, but soon enough, they had walked beneath the village gate of Tomra, and were preoccupied by other distractions.  
They re-stocked their supplies, and asked for directions, though the dwarves looked highly surprised to be seeing the four of them again. The fact that they were one less in number was only of minor interest. Had the dwarves known all along that the Sealed Cave had been a trap within a trap?  
When they had acquired all they needed of the dwarves, they prepared to leave, but not before they were pulled aside by the same dwarf who had given them directions the first time. "Tha' mission the king sent ye on," he asked, his expression stern as ever. "Did ye find wha' ye were lookin' fer?"  
"No," Cecil answered, looking the dwarf squarely in the eyes. "We did not."  
The dwarf nodded, and looked at each of them. "Nah surprised," he said with a heavy sigh, walking them to the village gate. "Well g'luck ta ye."  
Cecil clenched his jaw, but had little more to say to the dwarf, so it was Rosa who said departing words on his behalf. They left the village behind, returning to the Falcon where it had been grounded.  
Rydia was aware of the shift in Cecil's mood and kept her distance. Everyone, including Rosa, gave the paladin a wider berth. Cecil returned them to the air, and they flew until he began to fly them erratically, futilely searching for land. His long white hair was damp and sticking to his neck, and sweat glistened on his skin. Rydia glanced at him from time to time, concerned that he might make some fatal error in his fatigue.  
"We're lost," Edge remarked close to Rydia's side, echoing her thoughts. She flicked her gaze to him and then over the ship's railing. None of the land beneath them looked familiar, and Rydia knew they would have to set down soon to regroup. She walked to the opposite railing and peered over the side. She recognized nothing below them as the dwarf territory they had previously traveled, but as she squinted into the distance, she saw signs of life nonetheless. Perhaps they wouldn't have to be lost for long.  
"Cecil!" she shouted to the helm, and pointed. "There's something down there!"  
Cecil looked in the direction she had indicated, and nodded, turning the ship's wheel until the nose of the Falcon was pointed in that direction.  
It took less than an hour to find a place to land the ship, and once they had, they realized that what they had seen from the air was nothing more than a stone house with a few outlying buildings.  
"What is this place?" Edge asked as they walked toward the main building.  
Rydia shrugged, looking from side to side. "I have no idea," she admitted.  
"We're only here for directions, anyway," Cecil grumbled, stepping past them to knock at the door.  
They waited several minutes, but when nothing happened, Cecil knocked again--more forcefully.  
Rydia crossed her arms, searching for windows.  
"No one seems to be home," Rosa decided after several more minutes had passed and no one had come to the door.  
Cecil frowned. "That's odd. There's smoke coming from the chimney."  
Edge took a few steps back and looked up. "Why is there smoke coming from a house in the underworld?" he asked.  
"That is unusual," Rosa admitted. "But either they have no desire to entertain guests, or they must not be at home."  
"Let's return to the Falcon," Cecil said finally, turning away from the door. "We can try to figure out where we are from there. Here, we're only wasting time."  
Rydia was reluctant to give up so soon, but she joined Cecil and the others by the time they had reached the gate of the small estate. Just then, the sound of a heavy door swinging open on its hinges brought them to a stop. They looked over their shoulders and saw a dwarf wearing little but undergarments standing in the doorway.  
They stared at the dwarf for an awkward moment, and he stared at them as though they too were wearing little more than undergarments.  
"Humans?" the dwarf asked, and then grabbed onto the doorframe as he leaned over to call to someone else in the house. "Ser! Humans are here!"  
An instant later, an older gentleman holding a pair of metal tongs in one hand came to the door, peering out across the courtyard.  
"By the--" he fussed, brushing his soiled work apron ineffectually and then running a hand through his scraggly white hair. He vanished for a moment and returned without the tongs. "By Odin's beard, I never thought I'd be seeing humans here!" he said, ambling across the courtyard toward them. He took hold of Cecil's hands, bobbing his head nervously. "Come in, come in!" he told them, pulling them to the doorway, and causing the confused dwarf standing there to step aside to allow them entry.  
They were directed through a front hall and into a workshop that smelled of metal and oil. There were several blacksmithing tools littered on the stone work tables and a few discarded scabbards and sword hilts. The deeper into the room they plunged, the more oddments they saw. Rydia noticed several half-completed suits of armor sitting in corners gathering dust, and beside them, counters sparkling with gems in dozens of colors.  
"Never mind the mess," the man assured them. "Come upstairs--share a meal with me."  
Rydia caught Rosa's same perplexed look, but they followed the strange man to the second floor of the building. Once there, they found themselves in a quaint sitting room with more of the same delicately carved furniture they had seen in other dwarf dwellings.  
There were only three chairs, but Rydia elected to sit cross-legged on the floor, and Edge leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.  
Cecil and Rosa took chairs, and the strange man took a seat across the small table from them. He stared at each of them in turn and then patted his knees. "Now tell me--how did the four of you end up in the land of the dwarves?"  
Cecil nearly laughed, and they all looked at him sharply, wondering what could possibly be so amusing.  
"War," Cecil replied. "What else would bring us here?"  
The man hummed. "A fair enough answer," he reflected. "But a war with whom? Surely, not the dwarves against the upper kingdoms."  
"The entire world is at war--we came here to help turn the tide," Cecil explained.  
"And did you?"  
Cecil sighed, growling really. "No."  
Rydia noticed the man looking at her, his gaze lingering a moment on her hair. She blushed, self-consciously, but just like that, his regard turned to someone else.  
"That is a shame indeed," he announced. "I thought I saw all manner of flying contraptions, but had no idea why they were here. I see that you have one as well. Such curious devices! I once knew a man who dreamt of such things when he was young. I never thought I'd live to see the day when they'd be built and operational!"  
Cecil raised a brow. "As it happens, we know just such a man," Cecil informed him, and then paused, frowning. "Sir, you never told us your name."  
"My name?" the man looked uncomfortable. "Names--" he mused. "Brands that doom a person from birth to death. My name--it's irrelevant."  
"You're Kokkol, aren't you?" Edge asked from where he stood near the wall.  
"The smith!" Kokkol cried in response, slamming his fist on the tabletop. "And a damn good one, once!"  
"You're the smith the dwarves mentioned," Cecil realized.  
Kokkol groaned, and stood up from the table. "My name used to mean something! I was among the great pioneers in metallurgy--taught the Baronians to hone their weaponcraft, and I fashioned blades that could be fitted to a person's hands in Fabul. I even traveled to Eblan to learn of the ore they mined there and their forging techniques.  
Rydia and the others glanced at Edge suddenly, surprised by this small piece of information. The prince stiffened, and looked at Cecil coolly, not divulging any more information.  
"Ah, but I've lost my touch!" the smith complained. "I've made nothing but shit for a decade! Can't make my armor extraordinary--and the edges of my weapons used to sing. Now they are nothing but pitted blades fit for nothing more than a welp's first practice session. I came here in search of secrets I thought I'd missed. I came to this underworld in search of metal and mineral--ore! I found some of what I was looking for, but there were imperfections, and the results were--they are..."  
"I don't understand," Cecil said when he realized the smith wasn't going to complete his thought. "How did you get here in the first place? How long have you been here?"  
Kokkol scratched his beard, pouring himself a cup of tea, and fiddling with a pot on what looked to be a stove. "It took nearly five years to coil together enough fiber to make a rope that would reach the floor of the underworld. A mile of rope, I believe; no, maybe two."  
"Two miles of rope?" Rosa was aghast. "You climbed down?"  
"That part wasn't difficult," he said with an absent wave of his hand. "Strong arms, you see. But the heat damn near killed me."  
Rydia looked at the man anew. How had a human survived in such harsh conditions for so long?  
"How long have you been here?" Cecil asked.  
"Hard to say, since the sun no longer tells me the time. I would estimate that it's been ten--fifteen years?"  
The pot on his stove began to bubble and he hopped up to tend to it. Rydia looked at the pot for a moment and then had a peculiar observation--the house was comfortably cool despite its lower work room and the stove. For that matter, where had he found water?  
The smith lifted the pot from the stove without a mitt and set it upon the stone counter. He rummaged through a cabinet and discovered four bowls, into which he poured his stew.  
He handed a bowl to each of them, and they stare at the food, dumbfounded.  
Rydia swirled her spoon in the mixture and found that it was oddly--verdant. She looked up at the smith, and he appeared nervous, watching his hesitant guests poke at their food.  
"Oh, I assure you, it's perfectly edible," he said.  
"Are these real vegetables?" Cecil inquired, lifting what seemed to be a peapod on his spoon.  
"Of course they're real!" the smith insisted. "I can't tolerate dwarf mush much farther than I can spit it."  
"How have you found plant life that grows down here?" Rosa wanted to know.  
"The Sylves have many a precious commodity," Kokkol answered, shrugging. "They conjured water for me as well, enough to fill several drums that can last me for many months."  
"The Sylves? They all but ran us out of their cave," Rydia pointed out.  
"That's strange," he said, looking directly at her. "You look like one of their kin with that green hair of yours. They're really quite lovely. I've had years to gain their trust. Had to, you see."  
Reassured that what they were eating was palatable, they eagerly ate what they were offered. Kokkol studied them with steepled fingers pressed to his nose, and when Cecil set down his bowl, the smith pointed to his armor.  
"That's one of mine," he said critically. "The dwarves have so many precious gems just lying around, I had to try my hand at finding a new use for them. Do you find the breastplate too constricting?" he asked, gesturing at Cecil's chest.  
Cecil looked taken aback. "No, in fact, I find it perfectly comfortable."  
"The straps look too tight in the shoulders," the smith fussed, as he stood to inspect Cecil's armor more closely.  
Cecil pushed his chair away from the table and kept the smith at arm's length. "It's really alright--the armor fits fine," he objected, and then frowned when he noticed something else had caught the man's attention.  
"That sword--" Kokkol said, awed, reaching out for the scabbard tucked into Cecil's belt. He swept it out of Cecil's keeping with the deftness of a swordsman, and inspected the scabbard, turning it backwards and forwards. Then he stepped back and drew the blade.  
"Sir, my weapon--I'll be needing it back," Cecil protested. "It has significant meaning to me."  
"I'll say, m'boy," the smith answered absently. "And I might add that you've no idea what you're carrying," he said as he read the inscription on the blade and hurried down the stairs to the work room below.  
Cecil hastened after the smith, and the rest of them followed, pursuing him to the back room.  
"Sir?" Cecil inquired anxiously, seeing the smith take the sword to an anvil.  
Rydia glanced at Edge, whose mask was tugged below his jaw. He had a smug look on his face, almost as if he was enjoying Cecil's dilemma.  
"We truly only came for directions," Rosa protested, trying to gain the man's attention.  
"Who needs directions when you can have enlightenment instead?" the man quipped.  
Cecil stepped forward and snatched the old sword from the anvil while the smith's back was turned.  
Kokkol whirled in dismay, seeing the sword back in the hand of its owner. His eyes were alight with a bright and feverish admiration.  
"You received that blade from an Ancient One, didn't you?"  
Cecil straightened, his jaw clenched.  
"An--Ancient one?" he asked, guardedly.  
Rosa turned her face to Cecil, a question on her lips. "I thought you said--"  
"Why has all of this, from the moment we left Baron until now, been connected by some strange thread?" Cecil said, suddenly exasperated. "The crystals, the moon, this sword--is there some explanation for all of this?  
"I have no idea in hell as to half of what you just said," the smith announced. "But as for that sword--if that metal is the metal I think it is, then its history is just as ancient as the Tower of Babil."  
This got Rydia's attention, and she stared at the blade anew. She had heard of it, of course, but never seen Cecil carry it. What had Kokkol meant when he said it was as ancient as Babil?  
"What do you know of this sword?" Cecil asked, almost defensive.  
Kokkol beckoned for the sword, and Cecil reluctantly handed it over. "There were tales of several legendary weapons crafted long ago," the smith explained. "Perfectly balanced, edges that never dulled, and the purity of the metal used to make them was unparalleled. Generations of smiths have gone looking for them, in the hopes of being able to duplicate such masterpieces. In all these years, all that we've been able to learn is that the metal used to make them are from a rare ore that can only be found after meteor showers."  
"Meteor showers?" Cecil asked.  
The smith nodded. "Adamantite. Of course, finding a fallen meteorite, and then refining it is a process far too complicated for the forges in the upper kingdoms--and believe me, we've tried. I brought what scant quantities of it I had here, to the land of the dwarves, but alas. My methods were ineffective, and I've run out of the ore."  
"But that doesn't fully explain the history of this sword," Cecil reminded him.  
"Ah, you see, that sword has a certain lustre to it; the metal itself is beauty to behold. I can tell just by looking at it that no human hands crafted it.  
"No human hands?" Rosa asked curiously.  
"Which leads me to the Ancient Ones," Kokkol carried on, cradling the sword across his arms until he'd set it atop his anvil. He picked up a small hammer and began to tap on the blade from guard to tip, listening to the pitches. "No one knows precisely who they were or where they came from, but they left a number of things behind when they vanished. The Tower of Babil, for one; the Serpent's Road, another. This sword is inscribed with letters I've only seen in Mysidia, and only rarely, mind you. Rumor had it that the Mysidians deciphered some of the ancient texts left behind; deciphered and interpreted it. This looks to be something the Mysidians could explain to you."  
"The writing is a legend," Cecil said slowly, as he watched Kokkol continue to inspect the sword. "A legend of which I seem to be an integral part."  
Kokkol looked up from his anvil and squinted at Cecil. "I thought you looked a bit odd," he remarked. "If that's the case, then the Ancient Ones must have a gift for foresight--or a sense of humor."  
Rydia frowned at the smith, and looked at Cecil, wondering how much more abuse he was willing to tolerate. Cecil did indeed look piqued, but before he could open his mouth, the smith had diverted their attention again.  
"This sword, while well-crafted, is incomplete. This metal is missing its alloy."  
"Excuse me?" Cecil asked.  
"This sword has the potential to become greater than it is--if only I had more adamantite! I'm not even sure if those wily eyed tail-obsessed traders still have any like they once claimed. Not that I could ever reach Silvera again," he lamented, handing Cecil back the sword.  
Cecil returned the sword to its sheath, slipping it into his belt with authority. "You've enlightened us," he said. "Now, we'd like directions."  
The smith eyed Cecil shrewdly, and then looked at the rest of them, clucking disapprovingly. "You'll get nowhere with heat stroke. You need more water in your bodies, and you should rest for the time being."  
"We really don't have the--"  
"Time?" Kokkol interrupted him. "Never met a man who could fight a war while suffering from fatigue. My workers will be able to set you on your way after you've rested."  
"But sir, we really couldn't intrude," Rosa tried saying.  
"Nonsense!" Kokkol replied. "You can stay in the store room. It isn't much for sleeping, but it'll do you for the night."  
Hearing the smith say this, Rydia suddenly remembered every sore joint and muscle in her body. How long had it been since they'd last gotten any sleep? The few minutes stolen here and there, and on occasion, the hours divided among watches? She realized it hadn't been since they'd stopped in the Sealed Cave, and that must have been days ago, already.  
"Very well," Cecil answered. "We accept your hospitality."  
"Splendid!" Kokkol announced, leading them out of the main building and toward one of the side buildings on the estate. He opened the heavy door and they were blasted by a wave of cool air.  
"The Sylves and their wonderful magic!" Kokkol explained, stepping into the store room and fumbling for a lamp. Once he'd found it, he set it aglow, and the four of them saw a room lined with dried herbs and leaves, and bundles of plants tied together with cord.  
So this was what he'd meant by the Sylves having many strange and wonderful things, Rydia thought to herself, as they walked into the room.  
"I don't have any bedding, and for that I apologize, but you folk seem to have everything you need."  
"We do, thank you," Rosa informed their host, and with a nod, he turned to leave.  
"Oh, and those drums in the corner--" he added, looking at them again. "They hold water. Drink your fill."  
Rosa smiled and thanked the smith again, and he finally left them in peace.  
Rydia found herself a corner between two shelves and propped her pack against it, pulling out her bedroll. It had been a strange evening, but interesting all the same.  
Mysidia and Cecil's sword. How were the two connected to the same people who'd built the Tower of Babil? The same tower that now housed the crystals?  
She heard Rosa speaking quietly to Cecil and glanced over at the two of them.  
"--will be fine," Rosa had said, though Cecil looked less than convinced. Rosa lifted a hand to Cecil's cheek. "I'm sure the dwarves will be alright for a few hours at least," she assured him.  
Cecil turned his head away, and began to unpack his own bedroll, ignoring the stricken expression on Rosa's face.  
Rydia's heart reached out to her friend, but she didn't wish to intrude on their privacy, such that it was. She noticed Edge sitting on the opposite side of the room from her pretending to be preoccupied with his pack. He looked up at her when he sensed her gaze upon him, and she hurriedly looked away. After her last conversation with the ninja, she wasn't keen on revisiting what they had already discussed. His regard still made her nervous for reasons she didn't understand.

The night was spent in Kokkol the smith's storeroom, and by the time they'd all awakened, and drunk from the drums after filling their canteens, the smith and his dwarves walked them back to their airship.  
Just before they climbed aboard, Ermenrich, one of his dwarf assistants, pointed to a rise in the landscape.  
"Thar ye follow, an' keep straigh'," he told them, giving hand gestures and signals, that Rydia was having a hard time understanding.  
Kokkol seemed to notice she wasn't the only one. "There's a ridge over that way," he explained. "Keep that on your right and the magma bay on your left and hold that line. You should find yourself at Giott's stronghold in no time."  
Cecil shook the smith's hand. "Thank you."  
"Aye, thank you. Haven't had a chance to admire such workmanship in a sword for decades. Good luck with that war of yours!"  
Rydia frowned at the smith's lack of priorities, but followed Cecil up the plank to the ship.  
"If you find any of that ore I mentioned, bring that sword with you," Kokkol shouted up to them. "I can make a weapon that will make even the stoutest enemies cower with fear."  
"Thank you for the offer," Cecil shouted back. "If we ever come this way again, I'll seek you out."  
Rydia wondered if that was true. Would they ever be returning here?  
The airship rose into the air, and they left the smith far beneath them. Cecil obeyed the instructions given to him by the dwarf, keeping the ridge on his right and following the course of the magma bay. They flew for hours, the brilliant glow of liquid earth a constant light beneath the airship. Finally, after much doubtful discussion on whether or not they were off-course, solid ground appeared ahead of them. Rydia had been lost far too often in the underworld to give too much to hope, but as they drew nearer, she saw the square masonry of a fortress, and then the parapets. They had found Giott at last.

The Falcon was landed in a nearby plain, and they approached the castle cautiously through a line of tanks. The gates were opened before them, and they were ushered across the castle and into the throne room to find dwarves wearing heavy armor standing at attention on opposite walls.  
Rydia saw score marks on breastplates; damaged chain mail, bandaged limbs, and noticed a generally bleak mood upon the room.  
They walked before the king, who looked tired in the eyes. His daughter Luca stood at his side, glancing up at him in trepidation.  
No one said a word for several minutes and then Cecil withdrew something from his belt--something Rydia couldn't make out until he held it up for all to see. The key to the Sealed Cave.  
The king's expression fell as he nodded to Luca who hesitantly retrieved the key from Cecil's outstretched hand.  
"It is as I feared," the king said gravely, as he took the key from his daughter and twirled it between his fingers. His eyes took on a peculiar cast as he stared at the key and nothing else. A moment later, they were focused on the four humans.  
"One of you is missing," he observed.  
"We suffered a loss, yes," Cecil replied, his tone dreadfully flat.  
"And the crystal as well," the king added, flicking his gaze to a dwarf standing to his right who promptly rushed off with unspoken orders.  
Rydia noticed Edge bristle, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  
"We lost the crystal to Golbez as well," Cecil informed the king, his voice hitching with remorse.  
"I've had to recall my tanks," the king informed them with no small amount of annoyance. "The tower has changed in the last few days. It's become shielded, and has repelled our cannon fire."  
"Shielded?" Edge asked.  
"All of the crystals are there," Rydia realized, "It's like having all of the world's power in one place."  
"The tower is impervious," the king acknowledged with a nod. "We can't go near it. Not unless the rumors are true--that there exists somewhere in this world a machine that can break through its defenses."  
Cecil drew his brows together. "I don't understand," he said. "Why would such a machine exist?"  
The king began to pace on the dais. "Because it was made by the same people who built the tower. Only that which is made out of the same elements and with the same skill, should be able to breach the tower's defenses."  
"You said these were only rumors, but where did you hear of them? I've never heard of a craft or machine such as this until now," Cecil objected, having a hard time believing the king's words.  
"There are elements, you see," the king said. "Elements not natural to our world. We've found them buried in the strata of the earth--substances from what we believe to be another world, maybe even from the moon. Our ancestors encountered these elements long ago, as well as a race of people who sought this element as if their very lives depended on it. It was these people who built the tower. We helped, you see. It is recorded on our most ancient tablets. It took two hundred years to build; rooted as it was to the earth, and its pinnacles in the realm of the gods. But out of the tower, was born another vessel made of the very same stuff, as it were. There were drawings left of its construction and a note left in the ancient carvings--'birthed from womb of dragon's maw'," the king explained, shaking his head, and forgetting the rest of his thought. "After the tower was built, however, there was no sighting of the vessel nor of the people who built it. You said the man Golbez was trying to open a path to the moon? Seek out this vessel--if the tower and it were made by the same race, you may be able to circumvent him."  
Cecil nodded slowly. "Those are the same words in Mysidian legend," he realized aloud, crossing his arms in thought.  
"Mysidia--you know of it?" the king was quick to inquire. "I thought it was mere rumor as well."  
Cecil shook his head. "No, it is the capital of mages on the surface world--a holy city."  
The king's brows crawled together with incredulity. "You mean to tell me it is real?"  
"Very much so," Cecil assured him. "Their elder has confined himself to their tower of prayer, where he prays for us even now."  
"He prays, you say? I wonder--"  
Cecil frowned, not comprehending. "What is it?"  
"Prayer twined with magic and faith can do remarkable things. Perhaps he is trying to revive the vessel of legend and finish the work begun by the ancient ones so long ago. You should seek out this elder and learn what he knows."  
"But the passage to the surface is sealed now," Rosa pointed out.  
"And we have no way of reaching the surface with the tower barred to us," Edge added.  
The throne room doors opened with a clatter behind them and everyone turned to look.  
Cid strode through the room, bandages still wrapped around his arms and legs, and the singed portions of his beard growing back in unruly patches.  
"It's a good thing you people have me!" he declared, coming to a stop at Cecil's side. He looked everyone up and down. "The hell?" he asked, noticing a certain person's absence with a loathsome sigh. "Damn, that bastard."  
He turned his attention to the king. "And what's this about the tower being impenetrable?"  
"Cid," Cecil stammered, unable to fathom the engineer's energy in his current state.  
The engineer waved him off.  
"You should be abed, master engineer," the king answered with a wry smile.  
"I'll sleep when I'm dead, now what's this about the tower?" Cid demanded.  
"The crystals have all been collected by Golbez. They shield the tower's defenses now, and not one of us can get through it."  
Cid rested his hands decisively on his hips. "I can attach a drill to the Falcon's bow. You should be able to burrow your way out to the surface," he added, speaking this last to Cecil.  
Rosa glanced at him critically. "But your wounds--have they healed?"  
Cid growled. "We've got bigger things to worry about than a few scratches on ol' Cid!"  
Edge looked at him incredulously. "You really think you can do it?" he asked.  
"Think?" the engineer scoffed. "I'm Cid--there's nothing I can't do!"  
"What do you require?" the king asked, nonplussed by Cid's antics.  
Cid rattled off items that Rydia did not recognize, but the dwarves did, and several of them departed the room at the king's nod.  
"A drill?" Cecil repeated.  
"Yes, and we're wasting time--let's get to work!" Cid announced.  
They looked at the king, but he nodded resolutely. "Go!" he told them. "I have nothing else for you!"

With the king's blessing, they followed Cid out of the throne room and returned to the Falcon. Cid was speaking to Cecil quickly, nodding and grunting as Cecil answered his questions along the way.  
"That spineless idiot!" Rydia heard Cid shout unexpectedly as they passed beneath the castle's portcullis and onto the rocky ground surrounding the dwarf fortress.  
"If Golbez wasn't such a silver-tongued bastard with a penchant for mind-control, I'd blame Kain all the more. As it is, all I can say is--damn him to hell and back again and may Golbez hope he never sees my hammer descending on that pointy ass helmet of his."  
"Cid," Rosa scolded, glancing significantly at Rydia.  
Rydia couldn't see the expression he made, but she certainly heard his groan. "Oh, for crystals sake, Rosa. She's a grown woman, now. This is a war we're fighting, not a tea party!"  
Rosa countered his complaint with an icy stare.  
Cid grunted and looked at Rydia over his shoulder. "I make no apologies for Kain being an ass."  
Rydia shook her head, trying to fight a smile. It was just like Cid to lighten the mood, as entirely inappropriate as it was.  
They finally boarded the Falcon and Cid shouted directions to Cecil. "Land this as close to the east wall as possible," he instructed.  
Cecil flew the ship low, churning up clouds of red dust. Rydia covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve as Cecil hovered the ship in unsteady sideways lurches. When the landing was accomplished, an armada of dwarves on the battlements began to hoist metal shafts across the gap between the ship and the castle until they'd made a scaffolding of sorts. Rydia disembarked with Rosa, watching Cid boss the dwarves around with a commanding finger. A drill? She wasn't sure exactly what Cid had in mind, but at least the next few hours would prove entertaining.

 

0-0-0-0-0

 

Hours had passed, stretching long and tiresome until Rydia's boredom could no longer be abided. She had returned to the battlements at the airship's side, watching the work underway. She admittedly knew nothing of airships--they were a science completely unknown to her. Her people were of magic and nature and the ethereal planes, not mathematics and science and the architecture so essential to each craft. But she also couldn't help but find them fascinating. Cid went to work on the Falcon like a man whose lost love had been returned to him. He rattled off such words as jiboom and bowsprit and starboard so fast, it sounded like its own language. Fortunately, Cecil spoke the same language, for he followed the engineer down one length of the ship to the other, taking measurements which he then called loudly to Cid who had unfurled a long sheet of parchment on the decking, writing down numbers and notes.  
Rydia watched from her perch, bemused. It had taken no small amount of skill to join efforts with the dwarves and make the modifications feasible. Cecil and Cid had been busy for hours alone figuring out calculations and speaking with the dwarves.  
But when this too, proved not to hold her interest, she crossed her legs and drew the satchel she had at her side onto her lap, reaching inside for its contents. Before leaving the Feymarch, Black had given her an assortment of tomes to peruse. She took out the one she had been reading most recently, puzzling over a few of the more difficult invocations to help pass the time. Rosa joined her a few hours later, standing with her arms crossed.  
"How are they doing?" she asked, sitting down. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and Rydia knew she had been crying. She equally knew it was impolite to draw attention to the fact.  
"Cecil has been giving Cid measurements," Rydia explained. "And Cid has spent a lot of time cursing at Edge who keeps insisting that Cid's design is flawed--something about gravity."  
Rosa raised her brows and inspected the scene herself, her expression baffled.  
"This does not surprise me," the white mage murmured with a frown.  
Rydia glanced at Rosa, but the other woman did not seem to be in the mood for conversation. Instead, they sat side by side while the men hoisted ropes and tore open the ship's hull, making all sorts of commotion.  
After a time, even Rosa grew disinterested and left; and Rydia returned her eyes to the old characters penned into her most recent tome. The illustrations danced in the light of the magma; golds and bronzes flaring to life in all their minutia. She discovered this to be a difficult spell, with nuances in rich supply. The melody of this spell was longer, more complicated than the others she had learned; where the slightest error in tone and pitch and resonance could tear her spirit to pieces. She spoke the next line of incantation, keeping her voice flat, invoking no power. Then she sounded each syllable out, then each phrase, and then repeated it twice as fast until it flowed together like a continuous thought.  
"What are you doing?" she heard Edge ask, and the unexpected proximity startled her. She momentarily lost her control, her voice fluctuating with nerves, and she felt a ribbon of power channel through her, flowing into a crack in the castle's mortar and causing it to expand with a snap so loud it sounded like a branch shattering under the weight of snow. She stared at her accidental handiwork with wide eyes, and saw a three inch gap in the masonry. She then flicked her gaze to Edge who stood frozen in recoil.  
"I was going to ask if you were still angry with me, but I can see I have my answer," he answered with a tight voice, his eyes darting from her to the broken stone.  
She gaped up at him, the fear that she might have accidentally just caused him an injury, not fully faded from her thoughts.  
She shook her head. "It was--I didn't--accident," she finally sputtered out, closing her book with a definitive thump.  
He slowly arched one brow. "Is it safe to move or do you have something else in store for me?" he asked.  
Her concern quickly boiled into irritation. "What do you want, Edge?"  
He shifted his stance, relaxing, and studied her a moment.  
"Are you angry with me?" he repeated.  
She pressed her lips into a thin straight line and re-opened her book, pretending to ignore him.  
After a moment, he knelt down, batting the book closed with her fingers still between the pages. She looked at him angrily.  
“Why?” he persisted. “Is it a crime among your people to extend comfort to another?”  
Rydia blushed. “It’s not that you wanted to offer me comfort," she protested. "It’s the way you offered me comfort. You can never be sincere, can you? Everything’s a game to you."  
When he said nothing, she continued. "I’m not a toy for you to play with and to unravel like a puzzle. I am a summoner—the last summoner—and maybe that means little to you, but I refuse to be treated like a child."  
He stared at her dumbfounded for a protracted moment, and then Cid’s bellowing foghorn of a voice interrupted them both. Rydia started, and Edge grimaced as the engineer’s meaty hand pulled the ninja backwards, reluctantly, to the work at hand.  
“There’s no time for flirting when the end of the world is at our doorstep,” Cid ordered like a drill sergeant. “Keep it in your pants, boy, we’ve got an airship to fix.”  
Rydia grinned victoriously at Edge's comeuppance, even as his expression begged her to rescue him from being towed away. In truth, she was glad to be rid of him, at least for a while.  
She pouted her lips at him in a teasing fashion, and he glared; at the mercy of Cid and the airship repairs.  
In the meantime, Rydia decided that perhaps her studies were best conducted away from prying eyes and princely distractions. She gathered her things and strode across the battlements to the castle's cooler interior. There had to be a quiet place to read amidst the hustle and bustle of the dwarves scurrying forth with orders and errands.  
She found just such a place in the infirmary, sitting on a barrel in the corner while the wounded slept. And when she exhausted her voice with soft recitations, she found herself dozing off.  
Rydia had no idea how much time had passed, or where she was for that matter, when the infirmary door was thrown open, and an explosion of sound poured into the room.  
Dwarves were carrying a hefty load between them, and as Rydia's awareness returned, she blinked, and discovered it was Cid the dwarves were carrying.  
They deposited him into a bed and Rosa hovered over him like a concerned nurse.  
Cecil spoke to the dwarves, and one of the dwarf healers began to unwind his bandages, fussing over his wounds.  
"Should'a stayed abed," the healer complained, removing bandages stained with blood.  
Rydia approached the bed through the wall of dwarves, curiously trying to see Cid.  
"You always have to overdo it, don't you?" Rosa chided him, while the engineer grunted out a laugh, then hissed as a bandage took a little skin with it.  
"I think this is the part where I finally have to bow out and leave the rest to you young ones," he admitted. "I'm no good for much outside of fixing up airships in this condition anyhow."  
Edge laughed through his nose. "Had to go and show me up, didn't you, old man?" he said.  
Rydia glanced over at Edge, wondering when the ninja had taken a place beside her. She folded her arms, looking down at the engineer. "Get well soon," she told him.  
Cid smiled, and looked at her, and then at Edge.  
"You two--look after Cecil and Rosa for me, you hear?"  
Rydia grinned nervously at her companion. Why the two of them?  
Edge nodded with a helpless shrug. "Just take your time and recover," he told the engineer.  
"And you two," Cid said, directing his attention to Cecil and Rosa. "Be careful!"  
"You too, Cid," Rosa replied, taking his hand and squeezing it soundly.  
Cid shifted into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes. "Go on now," he said, waving his hand at them. "I don't remember you having enough time to be sitting around talking to crazy old men like me."  
"Take care of yourself, Cid," Cecil seconded.  
Cid grunted, and the dwarf healer returned with her arms burdened with more bandages and salves, shooing them away from the bed.

Rydia followed Cecil into the hallway adjacent to the infirmary. "What happened?" she asked.  
Rosa strode out of the room behind her, sighing. "He tried to do too much too quickly," she replied.  
Cecil gazed at Rosa for a long moment, and then at Rydia. "The dwarves are finishing Cid's work, but the modifications are mostly complete," he told her. "And the king has asked that we dine with his men before we leave."  
Rydia nodded, sensing there was still a sense of foreboding hovering close at hand. "What do we do until then?" she asked.  
Cecil sighed with a forced smile. "We wait."

0-0-0-0-0-0

Edge felt as if he was bathed in his own sweat, as he left the dining hall of the dwarves after their parting meal. He wondered if it might prove to be their "last" meal with the way things were going--and if the dwarf food was any indication.  
Cecil had mentioned to him over their meal that he'd wished to speak with him, and this both annoyed and intrigued the prince. They had not said a word to each other since the Sealed Cave, and Edge was still waiting for the other man to accept the blame for his own mistake. He had been warned--and he had done nothing.  
Rydia and Rosa had left the hall in conference with each other, and Cecil was waiting at the top of the stairs with his arms crossed, waiting for Edge to join him. His armor was absent, and the simple tunic he wore over trousers was stained with several weeks worth of sweat, grime, and blood. Cecil's pale hair was a stark contrast, and Edge frowned as he looked up at the paladin--the man who, even at his worst, seemed to make everyone else seem dingy by comparison.  
"Something you'd like to say?" Edge asked, trying to remain straight-faced.  
Cecil gazed down at him, gray eyes like pin points, and his jaw clenched.  
"Several things," he answered through tight lips. "And I would ask that you say nothing until I've said all I need to say."  
Edge felt his hackles rise--the same knee-jerk reaction he had to being scolded. He recalled many such talks with his father, and he disliked the irritating familiarity almost as much as he presently disliked the paladin.  
"Very well," he replied, trying to mask his anger with curiosity.  
"Walk with me," Cecil said--leaving the top of the stairs to head down the opposite hall.  
Edge climbed the stairs and followed him, catching up at a joining of the ways.  
Edge glanced down both hallways and then at Cecil.  
The paladin seemed reluctant to say what was on his mind, but Edge felt he had taken enough liberties with him over the past few days and wasn't about to press his luck.  
"There are--things you should know," Cecil finally said.  
"About what, precisely?" Edge asked.  
"About Kain. About this," Cecil replied, choosing a direction and walking.  
Edge kept apace, glancing occasionally at the other man.  
"Despite what he's done, at heart he is a good man. Misguided, but good."  
Edge opened his mouth to protest, but Cecil raised his hand to stall him.  
"We grew up together," Cecil revealed. "We spent our younger days together training, studying, and impressing women. Kain's father was a man of great influence, then--the king's trusted aide, and captain of the dragoons. He was killed when we were but boys, a time when Kain had hopes of becoming just as great as his father," he explained, his eyes taking on a faraway cast. "Kain took his father's death to heart--it had been a terrible accident. Afterwards, he became a ward of the king just as I was, and we became inseparable from that day onward. But we were also competitive. I took to knighthood; Kain followed in his father's footsteps and took the oaths of the dragoons. Over the years we were sent on several missions together, and he always had my back, no matter the danger. He saved my life on many occasions; so many, that I've lost count. I hadn't noticed until recently, that there was unrest in his spirit. He had became prone to moods and periods of deep silence. I thought perhaps it had simply been time passing, and I tried to draw him out but failed; as I too became consumed with my own training, with my own troubles. He remained by my side through even this--my brother at arms.  
And when our king was taken by madness...he was a loyal friend to me. I cannot set aside a lifetime of friendship in light of an error that was not entirely his doing."  
Edge looked at him, at the creases on his brow that spoke of stress and deep consideration.  
"You never wondered why he betrayed you in the first place?" Edge asked quietly.  
Cecil sighed. "I don't know whether it was complete manipulation, or his need to prove himself, or a combination of both."  
"And you never considered jealousy?" Edge inquired.  
"Jealousy?" Cecil said, surprised. "He was a captain in his own right--he had men who respected him."  
"--and a friend who had everything he wanted but could never have himself."  
Cecil stopped mid-stride and studied him shrewdly, failing to see what Edge had meant.  
Edge sighed and glanced away, trying to think of an explanation.  
"Two trees grow side by side," he began. "One is closer to the sun and grows quickly, spreading its roots deeper and pulling more water from the earth. The other tree beside it grows more slowly, always in the shade of the other. It will always be stunted, and its branches never as full as its twin. In most cases, the lesser of the two trees simply withers and dies."  
Cecil stared at him for a long moment. "That was surprisingly poetic," he observed.  
Edge laughed through his nose, running a hand through his short hair. "Spend any amount of time around shrines and temples, and you find you pick up a few things."  
Cecil shook his head, but crossed his arms in thought. "I've never considered Kain to be the one in my shadow."  
"That's because you were too busy basking in the light--and you had Rosa."  
Cecil's expression darkened. "He and I--we had an understanding of sorts where she was concerned."  
Edge raised a brow. "If he survives this, the two of you should re-visit that 'understanding'," he said dryly.  
"Despite everything," Cecil said, "I should have seen the signs earlier. I should have done more to stop him."  
"Yes. You should have," Edge agreed.  
"I've made a fatal error because I failed to see my friend as he was. I don't imagine you think very highly of me."  
"I still think you're a fool," Edge admitted boldly. "But a more forgivable fool, at least."  
Cecil shook his head again with a fleeting, exasperated grin. "All this, I felt you should know. Especially if you plan to continue with us. You do plan to continue with us, don't you?"  
Edge shrugged. "What else would I do with my time--simply wait for the end?"  
Cecil nodded as if he'd expected this. "Dissention will break us," he said, his expression quickly sobering. "If you have a problem with my decisions, don't undermine my authority in such a way again. I won't be as forgiving the next time and you will regret crossing me."  
Edge looked at him sharply, feeling the tension flare between them--the back and forth tug of power.  
"Are we finished?"  
Cecil sighed. "Yes, we are."  
Edge turned to leave, but Cecil called after him. "What I said to you in the cavern--about your character--"  
Edge pivoted to place a look on the other man. "You weren't wrong," he answered darkly, continuing to take backwards steps. "But you weren't entirely correct, either."  
At Cecil's frown, he added. "But that is something only time will reveal," he explained with a hapless wave of his hand, leaving the paladin to ponder all of this alone.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Cid had not been permitted to leave his bed to see the four of them off, but the dwarves had all come to bid farewell and good luck to the humans.  
Rydia stood on the Falcon's deck, watching dwarves pull away the last of the scaffolding from the ship's side.  
"Fare thee well!" Giott called to them, his armor glinting in the otherworldly light.  
"Thank you!" she shouted back, trying to project her voice above the noise of the propellers as they rose into the air.  
Cecil flew them away from the castle in a northward direction. This time, the dwarves had drawn them a crude but reliable map to prevent them from getting lost, as they had finally been given identifiable landmarks to follow.  
It took several hours to navigate from Giott's castle to their destination, but after a while, Rydia noticed a gargantuan column of rocks piled from the underworld floor to its ceiling. The haze of heat made it difficult to determine whether it was a pillar at all or the bones of the earth itself, but the closer Cecil flew them toward it, the more certain she was that this was where they were meant to be. This was the blocked path to the world above.  
Edge and Cecil were carrying on an argument, which was unsurprising, but Rydia strode to the bow of the ship where the drill had been attached. It was an impressive piece of equipment, jutting out at an angle with large spirals tapering to a point several feet in diameter.  
She glanced back at the helm where Edge was still arguing with Cecil, pointing to the earthen column and gesturing to the drill. She heard "insane" and "impossible" uttered from his lips, but Cecil's stern expression fixed their destination firmly ahead.  
She wondered how the drill would function. How were they to fly upwards when they first had to drill sideways?  
She knew she wasn't going to learn anything from asking herself these questions, so she made up her mind to join Cecil and Edge at the helm and listen more closely to their debate.  
"If we drill straight into that pillar, we'll be buried alive," Edge was trying to impress upon Cecil.  
Cecil schooled his expression, pursing his lips. "Not if we drill intelligently," he answered. "If we find a load-bearing section of the column and weaken it, we can determine which way it will fall."  
"And if the entire column comes crashing down on us at once?" Edge demanded.  
"Cid doesn't always think his plans through," Cecil replied with a tired shrug. "That doesn't mean it isn't worth trying."  
Rydia looked wide-eyed at Cecil and then at the column. This was their only chance, after all.  
They flew closer to the column and then around it, searching for sections where it was narrower.  
"There," Rosa pointed out, finding a slight narrowing at a point where the column began to angle.  
Cecil brought the Falcon around, carefully directing it to the rock face. Once the ship was in position, he pulled a series of levers that had been newly added during the modifications. Rydia could only imagine that they had something to do with the drill.  
She heard several ratchets and mechanical clinks below the deck, and then heard the drill as it slowly spun to life, gaining speed until it hummed hungrily.  
Rosa, anticipating trouble, began to chant, a soft psalm of white magic that Rydia knew all-too-well. She was protecting them from harm, and the green glow that surrounded her made Rydia feel slightly more confident about what they were about to do.  
Cecil advanced the ship, thereby, advancing the drill.  
At first the ship lurched, then evened out; but the deeper into the rock the drill bored, the more chunks of rock came hurtling over the ship's bow at the four of them. Pebbles, stones, clods of dirt; all of it showered the Falcon's deck, most of it bouncing off of the protect spells Rosa had placed around them. Thankfully, it also kept the dust at bay as it billowed like a plume from the hole.  
Cecil drove the drill further into the side of the column, until it made such a sound as to be unbearable. The drill bit suddenly jerked to a stop and the ship lurched suddenly, keening. They were flung from their feet, as Cecil clutched the ship's wheel, desperate for control.  
"We need to reverse the drill!" Edge shouted anxiously.  
Cecil threw himself at one of the levers beside the wheel, and a mechanical groaning rumbled below deck. The ship lurched the other direction, shaking, until Rydia wondered if all her teeth would fall out of her head from chattering.  
When the ship leveled out, Cecil drew back from the column, and the ship's propellers ceased straining to work as hard as they had been. The four of them peered at the bow to see what had happened.  
The drill was melted at the tip, and the grooves along its side had dulled to the point of uselessness.  
"So much for Cid's plan," Edge commented regrettably.  
Cecil had folded his arms, lost in thought, and Rosa was eyeing the ceiling of the underworld above them. No protect spell would keep them safe from a complete collapse of the earth itself.  
"We did manage to bore a deep hole into the rock," Cecil noticed after a while.  
"Yes, but we have no means of exploiting it," Edge answered, pacing back and forth across the deck.  
The ninja prince did not deal well with failure, Rydia noticed.  
And then suddenly he was looking directly at her. She felt her face redden at the unexpected attention.  
"Your magic," he said, looking her up and down meaningfully.  
She blanched. "The Eidolons?" she asked. "We'd need to fly the ship too close to the column for that, and we can't take that risk."  
He sighed at her, unimpressed. "That spell you were studying earlier," he mentioned.  
Rydia crossed her arms, wondering how she had suddenly become integral to the entire operation.  
"It's not--" she said defensively. "I can't--I haven't learned it yet."  
"You did a pretty good job on the dwarf castle," he muttered, narrowing his eyes.  
"That was an accident!" she protested. "It's a dangerous spell, and if I lose control--"  
"Control is not the problem here, Rydia," Edge informed her. "We could use a half-baked spell right about now."  
She looked at Cecil, and he was looking back at her, hopefully.  
"Can you do it, Rydia?" he asked, taking her measure.  
She squeezed her eyes angrily shut with a huff and marched to the bow of the ship. She gazed at the hole they'd drilled, sighed, and then returned to the helm. "I can try," she replied.  
Cecil nodded, and flew the ship to a safer distance. Once they were hovering far enough away to avoid the brunt of the collapse, did Rydia take stock of what she was about to attempt.  
Casting an advanced spell from this distance, with only a half-learned incantation--it was like trying to sing one of Edward's arias without knowing the proper key. What wretched thing would she create?  
"Would it help if I pestered you?" Edge supplied from somewhere to her left.  
"Shh!" she hissed at him, closing her eyes. She needed to concentrate. She had recited all day, surely she could figure out what she needed to do. She spoke the first word, allowing herself to find the center of it, steadying herself as she'd been trained, and let the first word flow into the next. It was like knowing the natural progression of notes in a song--knowing whether a phrase would go up or down. With each word she grew more confident, finding surety in how the magic began to flow through her. She allowed her emotion to color the song of the spell, but as she moved from line to line, her memory began to fail. Her lips began to falter as she began to think, and when her thoughts began to tangle and lose confidence, she lost the melody. The spell became unstable, and she felt it wobble, like a ripple turning to waves that were about to crash back into her. She clung on until she felt something take root where she had commanded, one thread of obedience as the magic took form and enacted its intended purpose. She heard splinters and then faint pops, the crushing weight of earth bearing down on itself. Her incantation was beginning to strain her, her brow beading with sweat as she struggled under the weight of it, as if she were trapped in the fissure herself, until finally she cut herself off at the end of a phrase, releasing her magic's tether.  
She fell to her knees, but opened her eyes to see if she had done anything at all.  
She had felt something, but the column stood where it had before. Had her spell, incomplete as it was, not been enough?  
"Look!" Rosa shouted, pointing below the hole they'd drilled.  
Rydia stood and walked to the ship's bow, straining her eyes. She saw a few stray shards of stone break free and fall, and then she heard it, more cracks and splinters. Shards, and then whole sheets of rock began to slough off the side of the column until a chain reaction took place. Cecil moved the airship an even greater distance back as the entire mountain range of Agart, it seemed, plummeted to the underworld floor.  
The sound was intense, so intense, Rydia had to cover her ears with her hands for fear she might go deaf.  
Dust and debris and a surge of heat washed over the airship, and they all ducked, covering their heads.  
It took several long minutes until the rumbling and concussions ceased to sound, and when it did, they peered up from where they had all been clinging to the decking.  
Light--real light--plunged into the underbelly of the earth. The sun.  
Rydia stood shakily to her feet. They had done it!  
Edge caught her eye, grinning at her triumphantly, and she couldn't help but grin in turn.  
They both looked at Cecil, who stood up with a sigh so relieved, that Rydia almost laughed.  
"Nice work, Rydia," he told her with a wink, and she nodded appreciatively.  
"I admit--maybe Cid's plans aren't impossible after all," Edge conceded, groaning.  
"You can apologize to him later," Cecil informed him, returning to the ship's wheel. "But first, we have an appointment in Mysidia that we have to keep."


	25. Legends

Cecil flew the Falcon through the chasm they had opened in the ceiling of the underworld, freeing them from the dwarves' domain.

                There was a stiff breeze above what remained of the mountains of Agart, buffeting the ship. Low clouds whisped by and Rydia found herself exulting in the scent of fresh, unfettered wind, even while she shivered as her sweat chilled to ice on her skin.

                The Falcon had not fared altogether well from the drilling, and there were pits and pockmarks from impacts it had taken during the process. The ship seemed to limp through the air, the propellers straining, but Cecil assured them the ship had enough spirit to last them to Mysidia, despite Edge's dubious expressions.

                They flew east, to the city Rydia had never seen before but had only heard about in stories. She had heard of Palom and Porom and of Mount Ordeals, of course, but she was more interested in learning of Mysidia's philosophies, magic, and culture. She found her nerves gathering, as she anticipated arriving in the spiritual city. Her people had been separated from the Mysidians for the better part of an age, but they had once shared the same beliefs. What would they think of her, the lone daughter of Mist? Would they scorn her, or welcome her, as they had once done with Cecil when he arrived on their shore as a dark knight?

                A peninsula appeared in the distance; and the ancient, rounded spines of mountains rose from the sea, covered in green. A blue haze spread from the sea to the land, bathing the mountains in soft feathery mist. Rydia squinted, wondering where they city was below them.

                And then she saw it through the clouds--great domed roofs with delicate spires reaching toward the heavens. Gold ornamentations glittered in the sunlight, and the buildings shone alabaster. Rydia caught her breath, seeing the tower of prayer atop the citadel's many tiers.

                Cecil lowered the ship, and as they descended, Rydia made out more details. The city was layered, each tier more elaborate than the next. She could see the homes of the general citizenry, and the buildings of learning, including the great library with its columned facade; and of course, the delicately tended gardens with fruit bearing trees that lined the streets.

                Cecil landed the Falcon across a field from the gates of the citadel. The grass was long and rose to their waists, and the smell of warm earth was sweet on Rydia's senses, who was used to the long deprivation from such scents, sights, and sounds. As they walked closer to the gates, she saw carts strewn about the fields with farmers wielding scythes as they cut down and tied bundles of straw. They nodded to the farmers in their wide-brimmed hats and continued on. Well-worn dirt tracks ran like veins from the surrounding countryside to the city itself, and they followed one such path directly to the gates, avoiding deep ruts made by wagon wheels.

                The gates were open upon their arrival, and a small assembly had come to meet them.

                Rydia's eyes swept across the delegation of blue and white-clad individuals, but her attention was captured by a man wearing black robes layered atop white. Around his neck hung a long silver chain with a polished lapis lazuli strung onto it with intricate fastenings. The stone glistened brilliantly, as though it were bringing to light the very depths of the ocean. It lay atop his beard, and at his waist, both of his hands were firmly clasped. The man approached Cecil and took his hand.

                "We saw your ship land, and had to meet you," he told Cecil. "Something has happened in your absence."

                Cecil's jaw was set as he nodded, surveying the other mages. "We have news of our own," he replied.

                The older man looked at the four of them, and Rydia noticed a wrinkle of concern on his brow that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, as he turned to lead them to a carriage hitched to two chocobos.

                "We will speak of it at the tower," the older gentleman assured them.

                True to his word, there were no words exchanged between the mounting of the carriage and subsequent ride through the citadel's wards. Rydia's ears strained for information, but when none was forthcoming, she took the opportunity to focus her eyes on the changing scenery. The buildings were neatly stacked atop each other with narrow alleyways and stairways connecting them. Linens blew in the breeze pinned to lines, and Rydia spied children running along rooftops with kites. They were fashioned in the shape of animals and easily recognized symbols like the sun, moon, and stars, and their colors were bright against the white of the city.

                Men and women wearing blue and white robes strode along the street beside them, but there weren't many of them among the plain clothed citizens. Their faces were grim and deep in thought as they ambled about, carrying out errands. Rydia remembered Cecil explaining the attack on Mysidia for its crystal, and that many mages had been slain or captured by Baron's forces. It amazed Rydia that the children could still play when so much violence had befallen the city some months before.

                 The carriage wound up several ramps as the road became steeper, and as the tower's shadow grew closer, Rydia noticed the number of mages multiply. She looked at her companions--and was surprised by what she saw. Cecil was deep in thought, Rosa was staring listlessly out into the city, and Edge--he was glaring sideways at the man wearing black who Rydia could only assume was the Elder. She glanced at the elderly man whose own eyes were pinned to his hands in his lap, and wondered what news he held for them. Was there any truth to what Giott had said in the underworld? Did Mysidia know of the machine the Ancient Ones had built?

                They approached the tower of prayer through a courtyard surrounded on both sides by long dormitories. From there, they disembarked the carriage and followed the Elder into the main entrance hall. It was a grand space with flagstone floors and paneled walls that gleamed with streaks of red and purple grain.

                "This way, please," the Elder informed them, directing them down a hallway to the left. Attached to this hall were a number of rooms, and the Elder led them to one in the very center of the wing.

                A grand table was set in the middle of the room, flanked on either side by rows of bookshelves.

                The Elder and his aides walked to the opposite end of the table, while Cecil stayed closest to the door—Rosa and the others seating themselves on either side of him. When they had all settled, the Elder spread his hands atop the table, looking at Cecil with heavy  brows.

                "My thoughts have traveled far or late, and I cannot help but see that the twins are not with you," the Elder noted regrettably.

                Rydia glanced at Cecil, remembering the twin statues taking residence in one of Baron's foyers.

                "Have they decided to stay elsewhere, or has something ill befallen them?" the elder pressed. "I have not been able to divine their location."

                Cecil's gray eyes avoided the Elder's. "They are indisposed in Baron," he answered.

                "Indisposed?" the Elder probed. "By magic, I presume?"

                "They saved our lives from a space that was collapsing. They sacrificed themselves for us by turning themselves to stone," Cecil elaborated, still unable to look the older man in the eyes.

                The Elder pursed his lips and gazed out a window to his right. "Yes, this explains many things," he muttered. "I had wondered why I'd received no word from them. I knew sending those children off into a war had its risks, but for their journey to be cut so short..."

                "Tellah tried, but--"

                The elder shook his head. "Magic between twins cannot be undone by simple magic; though, Tellah was nothing if not experienced. It was a rash thing they did, but undoubtedly it saved your life."

                "I'm sorry for their loss, if there was any way--"

                "The twins are not forever lost," the Elder suddenly interrupted. "For now I am content to know their fate and will work to undo it. In the meanwhile, there are more immediate concerns. Tell me, what news of Golbez's conquest of the crystals?"

                "The Tower of Babil has been activated," Cecil explained. "All of the world's crystals are in his hands and his plans for them are about to be set in motion."

                "The moon," the Elder said, absently stroking his beard.

                "Yes, there has been much talk of that lately," Cecil acknowledged.

                The Elder smiled grimly and nodded to the aide at his left who rose and walked to a lectern, returning with a heavy leather-bound tome. She set it on the table before the elder and he ran his fingers along the spine before flipping the cover open. The tome groaned and creaked as its pages were exposed to the light.

                The elder pointed at the page before him. "We began to research," he informed them. "During my meditations atop the tower, I heard a voice insistent that you travel to the moon. I was given visions as well--visions of a mighty ship, and of the prophecy given to my people; the very same prophecy inscribed on that sword of yours. We turned the main archives over, pored over every manuscript we could find, the older the better. And then we found this--" he said, pointing to the tome in front of him again. "In it we found ancient drawings of the ship I was shown in my visions."

                He turned the book so that the rest of them could see the illustration drawn delicately in black ink of a mighty ship. It looked so much like a modern airship, that Rydia was amazed such a thing had existed in ancient times.

                "The caption reads, 'the great whale'," the Elder said. "And while we're now aware that such a machine even existed, finding it is an entirely different matter."

                "Who built this ship?" Cecil asked, frowning at the illustration.

                "The Ancient Ones. The ones who hailed from the moon itself," the elder informed them.

                Rydia felt her pulse quicken. Could these people have been the builders of Babil?

                "It has been made clear to me that you are to go there. The voice on Mount Ordeals would not have blessed you with holy light if there was not to be some purpose behind your transformation."

                "The moon?" Cecil asked, incredulously. "Why do all roads lead there?" he added with a sigh.

                The Elder closed the book with a crisp thump. "Because I am certain that is where all of this began. Our world has been shaped by forces we have barely begun to understand, and the twin moon and its secrets are a large part of the mystery."

                "Do you think this 'Great Whale' is somewhere near Mysidia, then?" Rosa asked quietly.

                The Elder pursed his lips and looked out the window that faced the ocean. His gray eyes glinted in the bright sunlight, and Rydia waited for his answer.

                After a pause the Elder looked at Cecil.

 

_"Birthed from womb of Dragons’ maw_

_And borne unto the stars_

_By light and darkness held aloft_

_Are dreamtide oaths resworn._

_Moon is swathed in ever-light,_

_Ne’er again to know eclipse_

_Earth, with hallowed bounty reconciled."_

 He recited, saying the words with reverence, as though he had said them often in his meditations.

It had a certain lilt to it that Rydia found pleasing, almost like a song.

"That prophecy," Cecil said slowly, trying to piece his thoughts together. "The dwarves spoke of it, also."

"Yes, it is an ancient prophecy. Handed down from our oldest scholars," the elder told them.

"The dwarves seemed to believe that the ship you mentioned would be able to breach the tower's defenses," Cecil mentioned.

"On that account, I have no knowledge. I do, however, know that this vessel will take you to the moon. From there? I'm uncertain, though I have no doubt that the two are linked." 

Rydia chewed on the inside of her lip, disappointed that the elder couldn't give them a clearer answer.

The elder seemed to sense their disappointment, for he continued. "From the prophecy," he said, "we learned that the dragon mentioned in it is none other than the island this citadel sits upon. This city is ancient and owes much to the knowledge bestowed upon us by the Ancient Ones. The Serpent's Road, Mount Ordeals, and even many of our oldest texts were obtained through their patronage. It would make sense to me that the vessel I was shown in my visions would originate near this island—it's a matter of bringing it forth that we have not deciphered."

"What are we to do in the meantime?" Cecil asked, and Rydia heard the tired note of irritation in his voice.

"We will continue to meditate and to research," the elder replied, his voice calm and even. Annoyingly so.

"Pardon my frankness, but the world does not have time for you to be meditating on a solution when a solution needs to be found _now,"_ Cecil objected.

The elder smiled wanly. "I can tell that you traveled with Tellah, for you are displaying his impatience. However, impatience will solve nothing. There is urgency, and then there is recklessness."

"We could use a little recklessness," Cecil argued. "We have exhausted our options; we have no other recourse."

The elder nodded to the other of his aides, the two of them passing some unspoken communication. The mage left the room, and the elder looked back at Cecil, nonplussed. "I respect your resolve, but what would you do with the ship once it was here? Would you charge straight into the side of the tower, expecting it to bow before you in defeat? There are no certainties here. The only certainty I have, is that you are to go to the moon. Nothing less, nothing more. You were called, and now you must answer; and as a bearer of the holy light, you are responsible for doing what is asked of you. Your fate and the fate of the world are interlinked. You set aside your past—cast off your darkness—did you think it was for anything less than the benefit of all people?"

Rydia glanced at Cecil and saw him blanche. "We are in your auspices, then," the paladin answered, bowing his head contritely.

"You, of course, are welcome to help us search the archives," the elder continued. "After all, you have traveled extensively. You may recognize something that we might not."

"Of course," Cecil replied, looking then at the others.

The elder saw where his eyes had traveled and interceded. "The rest of your companions may stay in the dormitories. We have ample space, what with recent events."

"Thank you, your grace," Rosa answered on Cecil's behalf; skirting the uncomfortable fact that it was Cecil's own actions as a dark knight that had led to their accommodations.

"Of course, I am also not unfamiliar with the talents of those in your company," the elder added as an aside. "A white mage of Baron and a Summoner of Mist?" he said, acknowledging them for the first time. "My archivists could use your skills to help in the translation of the texts. If you feel up to the challenge, of course."

"We would, but neither of us has been trained in the reading of texts so ancient," Rosa replied. "We would be nothing but a hindrance."

"If you would do nothing more than speak to the people here, to inform them of the goings-on of the world, I'm sure everyone could do for a bit of news. At least, it would help to lend us some context to our work," the elder told her, and then flicked his gaze toward Rydia. Her cheeks flamed to have his attention fixed upon her. How had he known who she was—what she was? What thoughts were hidden under that regard, she wondered.

"But that can wait," the elder continued with a frown. "You look ragged and in need of rest. I will have you put up in rooms straightaway; however, I would like to speak to you a bit further," he said, addressing this last to Cecil.

The elder stood, and so did everyone else in the room, while the white mage at the elder's side stepped around the table and beckoned everyone but Cecil to follow.

They were ushered out of the room, but Cecil stayed behind to continue his meeting with the elder. The white mage who accompanied them was sparing with her words as she gave directions to Edge and pointed to the west wing, indicating he would find his room there. Turning her attention back to Rydia and Rosa, the mage personally led them to the east wing of the building. They passed the main entrance and its foyer; through several doors that led to wide rooms filled with tables covered with books. Beyond those, lay an impressive set of double doors. The aide produced an elaborate brass key and inserted it into the lock, prying open one of the doors and gesturing them through.

"This dormitory is reserved for the women," the aide explained. "We keep each dormitory separated by gender, lest the students become distracted from their studies by studies of a _different_ nature," she added in a wry tone. Rosa grinned, knowingly, but Rydia stared at the aide, perplexed. What else would they be studying, she wondered.

Once they had stepped through the doorway, the two of them were faced with the dormitories of the east wing. It was a vast hall, lined on either side by dozens upon dozens of rooms. Sunlight pierced through the rooms whose doors had been left open, and the entire wing had a definitive academic atmosphere. There were personal touches, of course. A soft burgundy carpet ran the length of the hall, and there were paintings hanging in the spaces between the doorways depicting waterscapes and clouds and other airy subjects. There were haphazard piles of books stacked against walls, boots lined up next to the rooms of their owners; and once they had traversed half the length of the wing, they found themselves in a grand common room. A solarium loomed above them with its domed ceiling, the mullions casting a radial pattern on the floor below. 

There were several overstuffed chairs set about the circular meeting of the ways, and on either side of the room where the main corridor didn't cut through it, staircases with elegantly carved banisters led to the dormitory's lower level.

The aide kept walking into the second half of the wing and then stopped, pointing.

"The third room on the left and the tenth room on the right are both vacant. You're welcome to stay here for the time being," she told them.

"Thank you," Rosa told the aide, staring at the line of doors with bewilderment.

"Meals are served promptly at the six hours. The next is in an hour," they were informed. "There are spare robes in the wardrobes should you feel the need to don something more... _fresh_ ," she said, noting with disdain, the state of their current garments.

"Thank you for your help," Rosa told her.

"Yes, thank you," Rydia echoed.

"It is the least we can do for such esteemed guests," the aide assured them, her expression doing nothing to add sincerity to her statement. "Is there anything else you require?"

They both shook their heads, and the aide turned smartly on her heels and left them to their own devices.

"Which room do you want?" Rydia asked after a moment, overwhelmed by the hall.

"Whichever one has a bed," Rosa replied immediately.

Rydia grinned. "I'm fairly certain both do," she pointed out.

"Then whichever one is fine," Rosa added, resting her hands on her hips and gazing at Rydia expectantly.

Rydia walked to the door on the right, but before she had a chance to inspect her room, she turned to look at Rosa who was frowning as she turned some thought over in her mind.

"Rosa, do you really think the whale, or the 'great whale' or whatever it is the elder called it, is still functional after all these years?"

Rosa's expression fell, and she looked at Rydia very seriously. "I'd like to believe that it is," she answered quietly. "I'll be damned if all of this is for naught—" she shook her head. "If the elder said his visions have shown him this vessel, then I will believe that what he was shown will come to pass."

Rydia considered that for a moment, wondering if the elder's visions were reliable, or if they were nothing but passing fancies.  

"I hope so too," she admitted, pursing her lips.

"I'll see you at the evening meal?" Rosa ventured, her tone lighter than before.

Rydia scoffed. "Of _course_!"

Rosa rolled her eyes and walked to her room, pushing the door further ajar. "These rooms are for _students_?" she gaped.

Rydia glanced at her own accommodations. Her expression soon morphed into honest surprise.

The room was immaculate. It was of modest size, but well furnished with anything a student could need. A desk with a chair, a bookshelf, a bed that looked beyond comfortable with airy sheets. There was a wardrobe, and beside it, a stand with a wash basin with a towel folded over the side. Rydia dropped her pack to the floor by the door and flung herself onto the bed with abandon. She had forgotten what a mattress felt like after all this time... _Bless_ whoever had invented them.

Her window was cracked open, and she could hear gulls calling. Mysidia was a soothing place, she decided. It held the weight of age, but the promise of innovation. Bestiaries, maps, the study of potions and tinctures, magic—all of it happened in this city. It was like being in the Feymarch again, only everything here was tangible and real—the sky was not an illusion made by magic, and the sounds she heard were being made by living beings.

Rydia sat up and felt a pang of regret. She was finding more and more reasons to stay away from the Feymarch, than she was rationalizing why she should return. When had her thoughts on the subject changed? She stared at the window for a moment, and resolved to find a time to speak to one of the Eidolons as soon as she was able.  

With that silent oath in place, Rydia stood up and began inspecting her room. She pulled open drawers and found a pen and a half-filled ink pot, and in another drawer, she found a sheaf of papers. She brought her hand to her chin, while an idea crossed her mind. Would the mages be angry if she made use of what had been left in her room? After all, the aide had asked if there was anything else they might need...

Turning, she rummaged through her pack until she found a few of her own books. There were several passages in the ancient language of her people, that she wanted to translate into modern forms. Black had given her a book with definitions and alphabets, pronunciations, and symbol keys. It was as if her people wanted to make it especially difficult to master the higher disciplines of magic, and so convoluted their texts with writings in the old style as well as in code. She had days, perhaps weeks, to master spells that in the past hundred years only a handful of mages had ever performed.

She flipped through the pages she had already marked, and then glanced listlessly at the window. It was a beautiful day, perfect for reading, and this was just the city for the task.

She gathered a handful of paper from the desk, and found behind it, a stick of charcoal. Taking all of these in a stack balanced atop her most recent reading, she pulled her door open with her foot, and returned to the hall. She had an hour to explore, and she started by carefully navigating the grand staircase attached to the solarium. On the lower level, was another series of doors and rooms, but at the end of those, was another door opening onto a bright patio. She walked in that direction, surprised that no one crossed her path on her journey across the dormitory.

                Rydia exited the main building and sat cross-legged on the warm tiles. There were students on the terrace below her, practicing with their mentors. The adults were wearing robes of blue and white, but the children wore a motley of colors. As she observed them, Rydia noticed that each student had scarves with tassels attached to their clothing, and that each represented a different discipline. Some children were learning the most basic of elemental spells, while others had advanced to the intermediate difficulties. None of them were learning advanced magic, but she was. The book across her own lap held the intricate invocations, and rhythms; all of them written in the archaic style that required she not only learn them, but translate them as well.

                For now, it was Quake--Titan's wrath, Tyrant's bane. The inked letters glittered in the sun, reflecting geometric patterns on her face and arms.

                She continued to read, translating as she went. She had the sheaf of parchment on the tile beside her and the stick of hard charcoal in her hand.

                She sat where she was for several minutes scribbling down notes, absorbing the sound of the students chanting and practicing below; the hum of insects in distant trees, and the calls of the gulls above. But after a while, she knew she wasn't alone. It wasn't what she heard, but rather, what she didn't--a stilling of the ambient sounds behind her. She  prepared herself, and glanced up when Edge crouched down beside her.

                Her eyes met his, and his pouting expression showed his obvious disappointment at her lack of surprise.

                 "More homework?" He asked with a sigh, nodding to the book in her lap.

                Rydia cradled the tome protectively; after all, no mortal was allowed to read it beyond what the Summoner laws permitted, and she snapped the book shut with a thump. "I don't expect you to know what a high summoner does," she replied acidly, "but the job doesn't come without obligations.

                "Obligations like _studying,"_ he noticed, looking down at her. "At all times _,"_ he added with a sympathetic grin. 

                Rydia sighed, rolling her eyes in an exasperated fashion. "Do you have any idea how much concentration is required to execute the higher level spells?"she asked. "Were you aware that the slightest error could cause—"

                "A castle to almost split in two?" he reminded her, interrupting her thought.

                She frowned. "Yes. Exactly," she recalled. "Which was _your_ fault, by the way."

                Edge was doing a very good job of looking offended. " _My_ fault?" he asked. "There I was, about to ask you how you were doing, and you nearly tore open the jaws of the earth right beneath me."

                "You're quick, I'm sure you would have managed," Rydia said with disappointment.

                He laughed. "Right after I'd taken you with me, maybe."

                Rydia ran a hand through her hair, and huffed out a breath. "What do you want, Edge?"

                When he didn't answer right away, she looked at him again. He was gazing back at her quizzically.

                "Here we are—at the end of the world, waiting for a ship of legend to save us—and you're reading a book," he said succinctly, pointing to the tome in her lap.

                "Are you saying that you're spending your time more nobly than I am?" she asked airily. "From where I sit, you're doing nothing but bothering others for your own amusement. I happen to be teaching myself magic of the highest order, an art form all its own—one which takes years of careful study, recitation, and practice to master."

                "You have the Eidolons—what do you need the higher spells for?" Edge countered, leaning closer.

                Rydia faltered, feeling her face flush. "The Eidolons, are—well, they're—

                "A liability?" Edge ventured.

                Rydia frowned, feeling that her privacy had somehow been invaded. "What do you mean?"

                "I mean," Edge drew out, "That if something were to happen to one of them in the midst of a summoning, you yourself would be in danger."

                "How did you—"

                "Your mother," he said simply.

                Rydia stared at her hands. "Yes, there's that."

                "Your magic is powerful enough as it is," Edge continued, looking at her sideways, almost warily. "Why do you need to be practicing lines as if it's music you need to memorize for a performance?"

                "You have your methods and I have mine," she replied archly, glancing at him. "My magic might be powerful, but I'm capable of more. I can learn more, conjure more, and if keeping myself engrossed in these books will help me to learn the incantations I need to do so, then I'll learn them. This _is_ a performance. This could be my _final_ performance, and I don't want to stand on the brink of disaster knowing that I was only fighting with half of my best."

                He looked back at her in silence for a moment. "Fair enough."

                "Although," Rydia continued, reaching for something she had found tucked in her book and had set aside, "While you're here, perhaps you could figure out what this is for me."

                She held up a scraggly bit of flesh that looked to be a tail, holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger as if it might be pestilent.

                "It's a tail," he remarked, unimpressed. He reached out for it, twirling it a little in front of his face. "Looks like a rat tail."

                "A rat's tail," Rydia replied, frowning.

                Edge sighed, as if bored. "What was that smith in the underworld saying about tails?" he asked. "Something about there being a person who traded in them?"

                Rydia glanced up at him, unsure.

                "I don't remember," she admitted.

                He dropped the tail back in her palm and she frowned.

                "Might be nothing after all--just a snack for that Eidolon pet of yours," he added.

                Rydia screwed her features into a scowl. "Who, Black?"

                Edge crossed his arms, looking at her in an odd way—the way he did when he was taking her measure. "What is he to you, anyway? Your personal guardian? Do summoners even have such things?"

                She flicked her hair behind her shoulder, annoyed, and looked at him squarely. "Don't princes have sitters to make sure they don't injure themselves?"

                He grinned at her remark. "Not in Eblan, sweetheart."

                She narrowed her eyes to slits. "Don't call me that."

                His expression morphed into something decidedly roguish. "High Summoner," he said, testing it out.

                She made a disgusted sound and waved her hand as if to ward him off. "Not that, either," she whined.

                "What would you prefer?" he asked.

                Her glare turned hard. "My _name_ would suffice," she replied.

                "So, _Rydia_ ," he hummed, bumping her shoulder with his own. Rydia pursed her lips, annoyed at the presumed familiarity. "Explain to me why a summoner's magic sounds so very different from that of the Mysidians?"

                She blinked. "What?"

                He smiled in a sympathetic, yet mocking way.  "What do you mean, 'what?'?" he asked. "You were listening to them, weren't you?"

                It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about and then she sighed. "I _heard_ them, yes, but I wasn't _listening_ ," she pointed out, glancing over the balcony's banister at the students below.

                "None of the words they're using are ones that I recognize," he explained, nodding in their direction.

                Rydia scoffed. "As if you'd know anything on the subject," she was quick to inform him.

                He looked at her incredulously. "I know more about the subject than you think, but thank you for the assumption."

                She frowned at him, surprised by this bit of information. "Am I to understand that you have been paying attention to me all of this time for academic reasons?"

                "You really are not very good with subtext, are you?" he muttered dryly.

                At her bewildered expression, he continued. "I wanted to _talk_ to you," he admitted wearily. "But talking to you without a reason is damn near impossible."

                Rydia's mind swam. "If all you wanted to do was talk to me, why didn't you just ask me?" she asked.

                Edge's face went blank. "Yes, because I've had such good luck at that since we've met."

                "How _do_ you know the difference between my spells and theirs?" she asked instead, eagerly looking up at him.

                "You're not the first mage I've come across," he answered, and she could tell he was hiding something. She could tell, with or without the mask.

                "I didn't think mages frequented Eblan," she replied.

                His gaze wandered for a moment, as he searched for an explanation. Rydia knew that the longer he delayed in answering, the more he was trying to hide.

                "I couldn't help but notice that the language they're using doesn't sound the same."

                "The language?" Rydia asked. "It must be the same, otherwise the spell wouldn't work properly."

                He looked at her flatly. "The language, probably," he retorted, "but either one is older than the other, or it's a different dialect."

                Rydia frowned. She had never thought of her magic and its incantations as a language with its own rules. She had always supposed that it was a variation of the common tongue, a subset of words deriving power from the crystals. Or often, she had thought of it as music, an art. Was it possible that there were an infinite number of variations to the architecture of magic's language—allowing for dialects and accents and even forms?  Hadn't she coaxed her own magic in unexpected ways?

                "I have no idea why my magic is different than theirs," she answered slowly. "Mysidia and Mist have been apart from each other for a long time. It's possible the incantations changed over the years, but maintained the same intent."

                "Interesting," Edge said, nodding.

                Rydia eyed him again, curiously. "What mages did you know in Eblan?" she pressed.

                He stared at her for a long moment, considering her, and then set his lips in a straight line. "A story for another time, perhaps," he said finally, standing up.

                Her eyes followed him, irritated that he always managed to wrangle so much information out of her, and yet she was never able to get any out of him. He began to walk away, leaving their conversation to hang in the air with a casual wave of his hand.

                She stood up and followed him. "Let me understand this—so long as _you're_ the one in control of the conversation, you can direct it wherever you wish, but once _I_ decide to take the reins, you feel the need to leave," she called after him.

                He threw a glance over his shoulder, a determined look on his face. "Yes, that's exactly it."

                "And only you get to decide this?" Rydia protested, hopping to catch up with him.

                Edge groaned piteously, realizing she was intent on following him the entire length of the patio, and finally spun on his heel so that he could walk backwards and address her simultaneously.  "The conversation lost its usefulness for me," he answered flippantly. "If I have nothing to gain from it, it's best to cut my losses and retreat before you do something like _this_ ," he said, gesturing vaguely in her direction.

A loud bell clanging in the tower, distracted them both, and Edge's smooth gait faltered on an uneven stone. A short laugh burst from Rydia's lips as Edge glared. She couldn't help but mock him, especially when he took such pains at being suave, but his attention was soon diverted by something behind them. She turned to look, and saw a line of mages filing out of the dormitories and across the terrace to another building around the corner connected to the main by a covered walkway. It was time for the evening meal, she realized, as she looked over her shoulder again at Edge only to find him gone. 

She arched a brow and returned to where she'd left her things, rushing after the mages to take a place at the end of the line.

 

0-0-0-0-0

Rosa was already in the dining hall when Rydia entered, and for a moment, she was dumbfounded, because a host of faces all turned to stare at her arrival. There were mostly women sitting in the room, but also a few men, and several children.

Rydia swallowed and ducked her head as she made a path straight for her friend, the only person in the room whom she knew.

She plopped herself on the bench beside Rosa and the white mage looked at her with a ghost of a bemused smile.

                "Get lost?" her friend asked.

                Rydia sighed. "I wasn't expecting the dining hall to be so far away," she admitted, glancing around the room.

                "Yes, I was expecting it to be closer as well," Rosa said, poking at her plate. Rydia eyed the fare, and saw fish nestled in a bed of long grained rice. Her eyes roamed the room for the source of the meal, and she saw it at a table with a stack of plates on one end, and several large iron pots on the other.

                Rydia stood and ventured over to the table, getting into line with several other robed students. They glanced at her sideways, but no one spoke to her, and she felt too out of place to start conversation on her own. She did, however, notice a blonde pig-tailed girl a few years younger than herself staring at her from the other side of the table while she ladled rice onto her plate. Rydia kept her gaze low, hoping to discourage awkward questions.

                Once she had returned to the table, Rosa had only picked at her food, a glassy look in her eyes as she stared across the room. Rydia sat down beside her and tilted her head, trying to find what her friend was looking at. When she realized Rosa was only staring into space, she waited for her friend to speak. She waited a long time.

                "Cecil's still speaking to the elder?" she mentioned after a while.

                Rosa frowned, the first expression she'd made since Rydia had returned to the table. "Yes, apparently they have more to speak about than the end of the world," Rosa replied, glancing at her.

                Rydia studied her friend curiously. "What do you mean?"

                "I just can't help but feel that I'm not—" Rosa paused, choosing her words. "I have a hard time understanding how a voice on a mountain top could alter, so profoundly, the course of his life. I have yet to figure out whose voice it was, let alone what this has to do with the moon. For all the time I've known him, Cecil has kept many things to himself, but at least the important things he would share with me. 'My son', he said the voice had called him. What am I to think of that? Could it have been Odin—our king? But what would Odin have known about the Ancient Ones and the moon, or of this mighty ship? So who else, then?" she asked, gripping her mug until her knuckles turned white. "I always knew there was something different about Cecil, something that set him apart from other men, but to be called to the moon so specifically? By whom? For what purpose? He won't tell me any of it, and to think that while he's on this righteous path—there simply isn't any room for me."

                Rydia took a moment to examine her plate, not entirely sure what Rosa was going on about. This group without Rosa was no group at all, of _course_ Cecil knew that. "Rosa, I don't think that's the real issue."

                "First he left me behind in Baron," Rosa continued, disregarding Rydia's concerns. "Then he didn't want me traveling to Fabul. He wasn't keen on me continuing to the underworld, either, and now.... I'm nothing but a hindrance to him, a stumbling block," Rosa complained, spearing her fish with her fork like a fisherman.

                Rydia looked at her sideways, and then glanced around the room again. "I see Edge isn't here," she noticed, attempting to change the topic.

                Rosa let out a dark chuckle. "Ah, the _other_ man of the hour," she retorted. "At least _he_ doesn't have a prophecy concerning him; foretelling that he will save the world singlehandedly with nothing but the words of a nameless ghost to guide him."

                "Rosa," Rydia appealed.

                "I have had more than enough of men and their egos," Rosa replied with force. "Men and their honor, and their pride, and their vanity."

                "Have you tried to speak to Cecil about this?"

                "He's too busy saving me from having to worry, rather than explaining anything to me."

                "Explaining what?" Rydia asked.

                "It seems to me that no matter how this ends—history will always remember Cecil as one of the noble heroes of the age. The paladin who stood against the tide of darkness and rescued the world from a dire fate. I, on the other hand...how will I be remembered? The white mage who stood by his side? The woman with nothing to show but her undying love? Her devotion? I'll be nothing but a footnote, nothing but a speck on history's page."

                "Rosa, history will remember you more kindly than that," Rydia said instead.

                "Will it?" Rosa asked, crossly. "How do you think history will remember you, Rydia? As a warrior of the age, or an orphan who followed in the footsteps of her elders to whatever end?"

                Rydia studied her friend, not entirely sure what Rosa was getting at. "Shouldn't we be worrying about survival first, and glory second?" she asked, eventually. "What does it matter how history remembers us?"

                "Perhaps not history, then," Rosa replied. "But certainly in stories. I will always be an invisible second—the woman in the wings. The woman waiting for the man she loves to realize that she isn't with him for the sake of the world. That she doesn't wish for herself to be used as leverage against him by his enemies. I am here for his sake, and his alone, but I have my own skills and talents. I am a trusted companion, and yet he thinks me a burden—a liability."

                "Rosa, Cecil does not see you as a burden," Rydia objected, becoming alarmed by her friend's intense feelings on the subject.

                "He hasn't so much as looked at me for days. Kain's betrayal—somehow I sense that I'm to blame for this. Was it truly the case that I toyed with Kain's emotions—that I convinced him that I was free to be persuaded? Is that why he turned against Cecil and our cause? Does Cecil think I misled his friend into loving me?" Rosa demanded.

                Rydia set down her fork, aware that half the eyes of the room were on them. "Rosa," Rydia tried again. "Cecil wants you here. He wants you with us."

                "I doubt that," Rosa replied angrily. "If this ship appears, just wait to see how quickly he tells me to stay behind."

                Rydia began to feel sick to her stomach, imagining a voyage to the moon without her friend. Would that mean that she would be left behind as well?  

                "I need to speak to him," Rosa announced, standing up. "I won't be left out of this any longer."

                Rydia watched Rosa stride away from the table, skirting clusters of mages in groups of four or five on her way to the exit. Rydia felt the absence of her friend keenly, glancing around the room at all of the strange faces.

                She wiggled in her seat, re-playing their conversation to herself. Rydia placed her hands flat on the table, gathering her thoughts. Their group was crumbling, and she felt as though her grip on the table was the only thing she could be sure of in the moment.

                Rydia was about to stand and return to her room, when the girl with blonde hair sat down beside her, sliding Rydia's book away from her and flipping the front cover open. Rydia jumped, surprised by the intrusion. She glanced at the girl, who was making a face at the contents of the tome, and quickly snatched the book back.

                "I'm sorry, but this book is—"

                "Forbidden?" the girl asked conspiratorially.

                "Only I'm allowed to read it," Rydia explained  weakly.

                "Says who?" the girl asked. "I'm allowed to read any of the texts _here,_ so why can't I read _that?_ "

                "This is very old," Rydia hedged. "It's old, and it's not mine, and I'm only looking after it—"

                The girl's eyes lit up. "Are you helping the archivists with the translations?" she asked. "You must be, since you have a book that looks old enough to be in the _ancient_ section."

                "The ancient section?" Rydia inquired.

                "Yes, the section of the library that only the masters are allowed to touch. Something about preservation."

                Rydia felt her palms begin to sweat, as she attempted to scoot away from the strange girl. Her plans were thwarted when someone else sat down at Rosa's empty spot. She looked across the table as another interloper sat on the other side of the table. Rydia stiffened, surrounded on all sides.

                "Who are you?" a young man in green robes wearing a black cord with red, blue, and yellow knots on it, asked her. "I'm Darryl," he announced as an after-thought.

                "I'm—"Rydia faltered, uncomfortable at revealing too many details. "I'm a mage," she said, eyeing them sideways. "From far away," she added.

                The student of black magic, Darryl, was not convinced. "I thought you were the summoner," he said. "If your green hair is any indication."

                "Well, yes, but—"

                "Darryl, you've made her uncomfortable. Can't you see that she's wilting?" the blonde girl with pigtails scolded him. "I'm Delphia, by the way."

                "What do you have to be concerned about?" Darryl asked, after rolling his eyes at Delphia, and  giving Rydia a proper once-over.

                "It's just that—your people and mine. They had their differences in the past, and we've been apart for so much time..."

                "She's referring to the great divide—the purge," the girl wearing gray robes on her left explained, throwing a sprout at Darryl.

                Darryl's eyes suddenly went wide. "Oh! I thought that was just one of the elder's fairy tales."

                "Fairy tales?" the gray-robed girl remarked. "It was one of the bloodiest times in history."

                Rydia blushed with embarrassment and shame. "I didn't know if Mysidia still held the Summoners in contempt."

                "It's been a few years since then," Darryl mused, considering her. "I think we can forgive you."

                Rydia breathed a sigh of relief, slumping in her seat.

                "So are the Eidolons your servants?" Delphia asked.

                "No, they're—"

                "Pets?" the girl in gray ventured.

                "Let her answer, Cybil!" Delphia protested, gesturing at Rydia again. "Chocobos, it's as if Palom never left."

                Rydia's brows crawled together out of discomfiture. "We are allies," she explained. "Partners."

                "You're friends with the summoned beasts?" Darryl asked. "You're _friends_ with Leviathan, the sinker of whole fleets?"

                Rydia shook her head. "I wouldn't say _friends,_ " she corrected.

                "Darryl, the summoners don't have permission to summon whomever they wish," Delphia chided him. "The lord of the seas wouldn't bend his head to just _anyone."_

                " _Can_ you summon him?" Cybil asked brightly.

                "I—" Rydia stammered, gripping the edge of the table harder. "I have earned his permission, yes."

                The three mages stared at her. "The lord of all waters, answers to you—a girl? How old are you, anyway?"

                Rydia laughed nervously. "Why does my age surprise you?"

                "I always thought the summoners were elderly masters who were sequestered away."

                "In the old times maybe, but my mother was hardly old when she began the rites."

                "The rites? You mean, the contests of strength and will?"

                "Yes, that's part of it."

                Cybil sighed, staring at her with adoration. "That's _so_ much more exotic than studying here; always at the grindstone with our noses in books. You actually get to _duel._ "

                Rydia scoffed. "I've spent most of the last ten years with my nose in books," she pointed out. "It's not as glamorous as you think."

                "You came with the dark knight, didn't you?" Delphia asked. "Have you known him long?"

                "I met him when I was a girl," Rydia replied, and then paused, catching herself.

                Darryl looked at her, puzzled. "When you were a girl? You've known him for a very long time, then."

                "Not that long, actually," Rydia answered. She was so used to explaining this to people who already knew her entire story, that she wasn't sure where to begin. She bit her lip, hoping they wouldn't press the issue. The look on Darryl's face indicated anything but.

                "Not that long?" he asked. "He can't be that old, can he?"

                "Well, see—" Rydia elaborated.

                "What about the other man who arrived with you?" Cybil asked, changing the subject.

                "Who, Edge?" Rydia asked, surprised, twisting to face the other girl.

                "The man with silver hair," Cybil repeated, grinning sheepishly.

                Rydia's eyes narrowed. "Ah. Yes," she forced out. "He's extremely—"

                "Handsome," Cybil sighed.

                "We saw him speaking to you on the terrace," Delphia added. "Cybil has been talking of nothing else. Do you know him well?"

                "Well enough to know that he's obnoxious, self-centered, vain, obsessed with revenge..."

                "Where is he from?" Cybil asked, disregarding everything Rydia had said.

                "Eblan," Rydia supplied off-handedly. "Really, he's everything I despise about spoiled brats," she said mostly to herself.

                "Is he rich?" Cybil asked.

                "Oh, I suppose," Rydia mused. "Aren't most princes rich? Though, his attitude leaves a lot to be desired—"

                "He's _rich,_ Delphia!" Cybil twittered to her friend, speaking around Rydia.

                "And he has an irritating tendency to always appear when you least expect him to—"

                "He's _mysterious!"_ Cybil shrieked, fanning herself with her hand.

                Rydia glanced at Cybil, and then looked at Delphia. "Is she alright?"

                Delphia shrugged helplessly. "Oh, she's hopeless. But at least you've given her plenty to think about."

                "Think about?" Rydia asked, arching a brow. "What's there to think about?"

                "Do you like him?" Cybil interrupted her.

                "What?" Rydia demanded.

                "If you don't like him, would you mind introducing me to him?"

                Rydia's expression morphed into disbelief. "Introduce you? To _him?_ "

                " _Girls,"_ Darryl complained, standing up from the table.

                "I don't think I can," Rydia protested, seeking an escape. "I have to check on my friend. Excuse me," she said, finally prying herself away from the table.

                Rydia practically ran out of the dining hall, carrying her book and papers with her. She dodged the milling crowds of students and fully fledged mages. Apparently, the evening hours was their time to congregate in the hallways and gossip about the day. She could tell their eyes were following her as she ducked and weaved between them and back to her room. She dumped everything onto her bed, and then took a gulp of air, hands on her hips.

                " _Mages_ ," she hissed to herself.

                They were still whispering and giggling in the hallway, and Rydia sighed, staring up at the ceiling. She threw her door open again and walked briskly out of the dormitory and back to the patio, and from there, down the staircase, and across the second terrace, and then beyond that, to a path that continued down the side of a steep hill.

                There were trees lining the path and Rydia soon lost sight of the tower beneath the bowers.

                Luminaries lit the path, and the sound of river water bubbling over stone met her ears, echoing off of the hillside.  

                She walked to the bottom, where the path leveled out and followed the river that flanked the city on its journey to the sea. The air had cooled and the humidity settled on her skin. The night sounds were peaceful, reminding her of the end of summer.

                She found a place by the edge of the water and settled down next to a rock that was three times her size. In this shallow inlet, she was hedged in by an overgrown stand of trees and high reeds. She rested her face on her hands with a heavy sigh. This was the city of Mysidia? One of the great schools of magic and the home of the water crystal?

                Speaking to Cybil and Delphia had reminded her how out of place she was—that she was the last of a dying discipline, a people whose legacy was founded on the persecution of others. She wasn't like them. Her magic was different—even Edge could tell.

                Where did she fit into this world?

                Her thoughts returned to the promise she had made to Ramuh—that she would atone for the crimes of her people. What they had done in the past had been no better than Golbez and his present plans. Would she ever have the chance to see to that promise? Would she live long enough to see justice? Would she be able to establish herself among the kingdoms and nations of the world—she alone—as the only summoner?

                She stared at the water, and then picked up a stone and skimmed it across the surface. It made a delicate plop when it sank, disturbing a few water skimmers. She was still wearing her robes from the underworld, with the same stains and the same red dirt embedded into the fibers. They clung uncomfortably and she felt as though she was wearing a second skin. She wasn't sure how sacred the waters near Mysidia were considered, but she found herself fighting the urge to jump in.

                She had never particularly been one to break rules, and she knew very little of Mysidia's laws and traditions, but there was something tempting about jumping in, clothing and all.

                She removed her boots and dipped her toes. The water was warm, insulated by the reeds. She crept into the shallow water, and then waded out into deeper water until she began to feel the river's current. Between the moss covered branches of the trees above her, she could see the glimmer of the twin moons. One had begun to glow a peculiar shade of red, and the other, blue. She stared, and the red moon twinkled, resonating with a certain glow. Had the twin moon always done that, she wondered, or was it responding to the tower of Babil and the crystals there?

                She sighed, clenching her eyes shut as she dunked her head beneath the water. It was silty and reeds brushed against her arms and legs, but at least the river replaced the scent of sulfur with that of stream and soil. She wiped the water from her eyes and nose and turned, dragging her robes through the reed-strewn water, until a snapping twig at the shore made her stop. She stilled and let the last ripple reach the shore before she searched the darkness with her eyes.

                No one was there, but she was afraid that she'd broken some taboo, and quickly waded to the edge, pulling herself out of the water and hastily wringing out her tresses before she could be reprimanded.

                When she looked up again, she noticed a silvery shape among the tree trunks, and froze. She strained her eyes, and eventually Edge stepped forward from the trees into the moonlight. She frowned at this intrusion of her privacy for the second time that day.

                "I thought you were one of the mages," she hissed. "What do you want now, Edge. Speak fast, or I'll turn you into a toad and leave you here."

                He hesitated, and she closed her eyes, beginning to chant the simple singsong incantation she had known since childhood. Within a moment, she felt a finger pressed against her lips and she opened her eyes again.

                "Don't--" he warned, keeping his voice low.

                She sighed, allowing her spell to dissipate like vapor in the air. When Edge was sure he was safe, he pulled his finger away.

                "Only you would threaten transformative magic," he complained.

                "Only you would sneak up on a girl while she's trying to find peace and quiet. Besides, it would make for a good story--the frog prince."

                Edge rolled his eyes, and took a step back. "I came here searching for a place to hide. Much to my surprise, this little hideaway was already taken."

                "You? Peace and quiet?" Rydia asked archly. "What, was Cecil not available to be harangued?"

                He grinned. "He was not."

                She smiled, and then made a face. "Hiding from what?" she asked.

                His own expression became forced, as he turned away from her, walking toward the path beyond the trees. "People," he answered.

                Rydia gathered up her sodden robes and boots and strode after him.    

                "You know, I couldn't help but notice that you were uncomfortable in the Feymarch, and you're uncomfortable here," she called out to him. "You didn't have a single snide remark to make during the entire meeting with the elder. Were you ill?"

                "I said nothing, because I had nothing to say," he replied tersely over his shoulder.

                "You always have something to say," she pointed out, pursing her lips. "Except, of course, when it's inconvenient for you. We never finished our conversation earlier."

                He rolled his eyes, and glared at her. "Our conversation was more than finished," he objected. "That's what happens when one of the participants _leaves._ "

                "I think," Rydia said, walking faster in order to catch up to him, which was difficult to do while barefooted. "That you are hiding something from me. And you  want me to know that you are."

                The faintest hint of a smile lifted the corner of his lip as he looked back at her. "Oh, do I?"

                "You asked why my magic was different from the students here, and then you ran away like a coward when I asked you how you knew."

                "I have ears to hear, you know."

                "It's more than that," she objected. "You know something about magic."

                "Something, yes. That does not, an expert, make me."

                Rydia shook her head. "I thought Eblan had no mages. You are a kingdom of the sword, aren't you? That and, oh what did you call it—ninjutsu?"

                "We have several disciplines," he replied.

                "Yes, but none of those include the disciplines of black and white magic. What do you know of it?"

                Edge stopped walking suddenly and Rydia made a graceless stop herself.

                "It was a not-so-innocent conversation starter. Forget that I asked it at all."

                "You were glaring at the elder as if he had done something to personally offend you," Rydia added before Edge could escape her again.

                "There isn't much love between my people and Mysidia," he admitted, crossing his arms and remaining a noticeable distance away.

                Rydia looked at him, reading his posture as defensive. "There is a feud between Eblan and Mysidia?" she asked.

                Edge made a strangled sound in his throat, and it was obvious that he had hoped to be rid of her by now. He looked at her again, and Rydia arched a brow.

                "Not the kingdoms so much as my family--"

                Rydia made a lopsided smile. "Your family? Did one of them insult your honor?" she quipped.

                Edge's manner changed. "My mother was Mysidian," he answered stiffly.

                Rydia's smile slipped, as she sensed she might have actually struck a nerve. "Why did she leave?" she asked quietly, adjusting her approach.

                Edge studied her for a moment. "She didn't belong here," he said simply.

                "And you blame Mysidia because of this? Why didn't she belong here?" Rydia asked, concerned.

                Edge sighed, and began to walk away again. "Ask the elder."

                Rydia remained rooted in place. "She practiced magic—you learned the language from her," she realized, glancing up at him.

                "The exact question I had been hoping to dodge. Thank you, Rydia," he said, stopping again.

                "Why did you bring the topic up, if you were hoping not to have it redirected at yourself. That was foolish."

                "You're quicker than I expected," he answered. "Most would have made no connection at all."

                "You're angry with me," she realized.

                "Annoyed," he replied.

                " _You_ brought it up," she reminded him.

                "Rydia, there is a certain art to conversation making," he informed her. "You don't aim for the jugular on the first go unless you are trying to start a fight."

                "I wasn't trying to start a fight!" she objected. "I was trying to get anything out of you at all. You say so many things without ever really saying anything at all."

                He gave her a dark smile. "And that—is the art of conversation," he said.

                Rydia rested her hands on her hips, and nodded at him subjectively. "Is _that_ why your people wear masks? To hide the truth from everyone and anyone?" she asked, taking the lead from him and walking along the path on her return to the dormitory.

                She couldn't hear his footfalls, but she knew he was following.

                "So now I'm to understand that _you're_ annoyed with _me_?" he asked once they had climbed half of the hill.

                "Yes," she snipped. "You understand correctly."

                "Rydia—"

                "Don't even bother," she warned. "All you're going to do is become more angry that I would dare ask you any questions at all."

                She quickened her step until they reached the terrace, and once she was halfway across, she stopped. There was a familiar figure leaving the dormitory, but Rydia had to squint to be certain of who it was. It was Rosa, she realized, wearing her traveling cloak and carrying her pack.

                "Rosa?" Rydia murmured to herself, and then began walking quickly forward. "Rosa!" she called out, this time loud enough for the other woman to hear. "Where are you going?" she asked when she had lessened the gap between them.

                Rosa peered out through the darkness at her, surprised and dismayed. "Rydia," Rosa muttered in response, her expression hardening. "I'm going to a place where my presence will be desired," she announced.

                "You look like you're planning to leave the city," Rydia pointed out.

                Rosa crossed her arms and looked away. "If he's going to leave me behind, I may as well send myself away."

                Rydia narrowed her eyes, trying to understand the situation. "Rosa," she appealed. "You're being unreasonable."

                "I just need to clear my head!" Rosa snapped.

                "But where are you going?" Rydia asked.

                "Just leave me be!" Rosa insisted. "And please don't follow me," she added, rushing off across the terrace until she disappeared around the corner of the dormitory and into the night.

                Rydia stood in place, baffled, and then remembered that Edge was standing behind her. She turned on her heel, a suspicion forming in her mind.

                "You said something to her, didn't you," she accused.

                Edge looked back at her innocently. "To make her pack her things and leave? No."

                "What did you say?"

                He sighed, rolling his eyes. "What did I tell her?" he retorted. "I told her the truth—what any sane person would do under the circumstances."

                Rydia stared at him, thinking back to her conversation with Rosa over dinner. "You have her convinced that Cecil thinks she turned Kain against us," Rydia realized, balling her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. Somehow, starting this argument with Edge reminded her of just how good he was at arguing, and how inadequate she was.

                Edge crossed his arms as he frowned. "I warned her that she is less benign than she thinks."

                "What are you talking about?" Rydia demanded, helplessly shaking her head. "What could she possibly have done to have deserved this?"

                Edge laughed, and it came out dry sounding and harsh. "What has she done?" he asked. "It isn't so much what she's done so much as what she is."

                "She is a person, not a thing," Rydia replied vehemently, offended by the implication.

                "She is a beautiful woman," he corrected her. "A companion, a comforting ear, a healer, and an object of affection—it is her misfortune that she became the object of affection for two men who were such good friends. Her choosing Cecil is the very reason why we are here, and why Kain is elsewhere, following the only course he felt he had left."

                "I don't understand," Rydia said, feeling the need to pace. It was moments like these when she cursed her upbringing away from other humans.

                Edge made a face, his patience wearing thin. Rydia glared back at him, unsure of what he had expected of her in the first place. Relationships were not things she easily understood, let alone of a romantic nature.

                "You're not a man—it's difficult to explain," he complained.

                "Please try," Rydia pressed, wanting a better answer than vague allusions.

                "He lost her," Edge said at last.

                "Who, Kain?" Rydia inquired, raising her brows.

                Edge rolled his eyes, annoyed at having to elaborate. "He loved her, perhaps as much as Cecil; but for her own reasons, Rosa chose Cecil. She chose the white knight. Kain had two options—to play the role of the friend and wish happiness on the blessed couple, or to seek a way to win Rosa's affections. When that failed? He had nothing left—he was a man with much pride and accomplishments and nothing to show for his trouble. For all his flaws, Kain is an excellent warrior. I am not surprised that the promise of prestige, or perhaps even the love of the woman he desired, was enough to lure him to Golbez's side."

                "You really think he loved her that much?" Rydia asked, feeling ill with anxiety.

                "I think he desired her, as one desires the shiny new toy of a best friend. How sincere were his feelings? I don't know, but Rosa needed to know. She needed to be aware that while she flaunted her affection for the one, she was driving a stake through the heart of the other."

                Rydia crossed her arms, shivering in the night air. "Yes, and now you've driven her off entirely," she complained, nodding toward the dormitory. "She has accepted all of the so-called blame you've laid on her, and she's left us. She mentioned something earlier about being nothing but a burden to Cecil, a liability."

                "She's probably just gone on a walk through the city, maybe beyond the gates. This was bound to happen sooner or later—a lover's spat. I'm sure they'll settle it before anything important happens."

                "Unbelievable," Rydia scoffed. "You are truly unbelievable. Leave before I truly do you harm," she threatened, tapping her finger on her hip.

                Edge seemed to know when he was beaten, and sighing, he shook his head. "I wasn't wrong, you know."

                " _Leave,"_ Rydia said again, feeling her anger rise.

                They stared at each other for another moment, and then Edge turned to leave her. Rydia waited until he was out of her sight before releasing the breath she'd been holding. How could he have said such things? How could he have knowingly caused this?

                She stormed her way into the dormitory, relieved at finding the doorway unlocked, but annoyed at finding a gaggle of mages just inside it. They all stopped talking when she entered.

                The look on her face must have been frightening to behold, because the mood of the room cooled several degrees as the other girls dispersed with sideways glances while she passed.

                Rydia ignored everyone on her way to her room, hoping no one would question her wet and bedraggled appearance. Once she was inside, she threw the door shut, locking it for good measure. If Rosa wasn't back by morning, she would have more than a few words for the ninja. Until then, she needed to escape her damp garments and make an appointment with her mattress.

                She accomplished the first with brusque efficiency, slipping a robe from the wardrobe over her head as she laid herself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. What _would_ they do if Rosa didn't return in the morning?

               

                She stared at the ceiling for longer than she'd wanted to, but her argument with Edge, and Rosa's leaving, had left her mind wide awake. It was an hour at least before sleep claimed her, and she wasn't sure how long it had been before a strange clunking sound woke her up again. 

                She was laying on her side, facing the wall, but she opened her eyes, and waited for the sound to repeat itself. There was a rustle of cloth, and she flipped over, facing the other side of the room. She saw nothing, but she felt someone else in the room regardless.

                "She's still gone," a familiar voice announced quietly.

                Rydia sat up in bed, her eyes searching the dark while her heart raced. "Edge?" she called, and finally saw a flicker of movement on the other side of the room near the window. She frowned, squinting.

                "How did you get in here?" she demanded, more than a little disturbed.

                She noticed the white of one of his eyes glisten as he stared at her, leaning forward slowly. "Ninja," he answered simply from where he was sitting in a chair.

                Rydia scowled.

                "I'm waiting for the day your face gets stuck that way," he said, clicking the oil lamp in her room on to a low but steady gleam.

                She threw her pillow at him, whipping it straight through the air. Disappointingly, he stopped it with one hand.

                "No, really, what are you doing in my room dressed as a—" she frowned again, looking at his get-up. "Where did you even _find_ that?"

                "This?" He asked lightly, plucking at white robes. "Someone had hung it up to dry."

                "And you stole it."

                "Borrowed it."

                "What time is it?" Rydia wanted to know, looking side to side in confusion.

                "Halfway to dawn," Edge answered.

                "And you're here about Rosa _now?"_ she asked. "This couldn't wait until morning?"

                He looked at the window with a frown. "I had this thought," he began. "That I owed you an apology for earlier. That, and if we were to go to the moon, we might need a white mage. Unless—I don't suppose you have any cure spells in your arsenal."

                Rydia pursed her lips. "No."

                "If the elder raises the ship, it would make sense to keep all of us together."

                "And?"

                "I'd rather not travel to the moon without a healer," he said.

                "Where do you think she went?" Rydia asked with a yawn.

                "Baron."

                Rydia rubbed tired eyes. "How are we supposed to get there? I can't pilot an airship, can you?"

                Edge grinned roguishly. "Who said anything about flying? There is a road that leads there."

                Rydia frowned. "How can that be?"

                "Serpent's road."

                She groaned stubbornly and flopped back on her bed. "Is this another of your insane schemes?" she asked.

                "This is another of my _brilliant_ schemes," he corrected her. "Get up, get dressed."

                She flung the covers back over her head. "You're the one who owes the apology, so why do _I_ have to participate?"

                He paused, and then whipped the covers off of her again. She curled up into a ball out of protest.

                " _You_ go if you're feeling so remorseful," she complained, squeezing her eyes shut.

                "And here I was half hoping that you wouldn't be wearing anything," he said, sounding disappointed.

                Her eyes flew open at that. "I will set fire to you if you don't step away from this bed," she hissed, sitting up again.

                He grinned at her from underneath the hood of his "borrowed" white mage's robes, and then poked her shoulder. "You look very mage-like yourself," he replied.

                She glanced down at what she had thrown on to replace her wet clothes and saw that they were the robes of a black mage. She sighed.

                "You weren't going to get much sleep anyway," he informed her, pulling her out of bed.

                She swatted his hands away. "A road," she repeated angrily.

                "Yes. To Baron," he said again.

                She strangled a groan and nodded reluctantly. " _Fine,"_ she replied, fumbling for her pack.  

                "Follow me," he said, opening the door to her room.

                She sighed, dragging her feet as she followed him into the night.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                "Why is it just the two of us?" Rydia asked once they had left the campus of the tower behind them. "Why isn't Cecil with us?"

                Edge took a few more steps before answering. "He didn't think Rosa going off on her own was anything to become overly concerned about."

                Rydia crossed her arms, not fully believing that story. "Did you even tell him?"

                Edge glared at her. "Of course I told him. But he was more than willing to wait until morning," he revealed. "The debt I had to repay was to you, not to him."

                "Ah," she said, understanding the situation better.

                The tower disappeared amidst the other buildings of the city, wall after wall casting stark shadows on the road.  Edge led her down the city streets as if he knew precisely where he was going.

                Rydia looked at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering why that was. "Edge," she said quietly once they had left the ward of the city where the wealthiest of Mysidia's citizens lived.

                "Hm," he hummed back, glancing at her briefly, before returning his eyes to the next alleyway he was guiding her down.

                "How do you know where you're going? We only just arrived," Rydia pointed out, stepping over a crate in her path.

                "Couldn't sleep," he told her, tugging her arm when she nearly made the wrong turning.

                "So you memorized the layout of the city?" she asked, shocked.

                "Impressed?" he asked smugly.

                She rolled her eyes. "Merely surprised," she replied. "Where are we, exactly?"

                "A little off the beaten track," he explained, leading her away from a cluster of homes and down an avenue lined with trees and statuaries. The path became dark as they left the light from the city luminaries and climbed down a series of steps toward a solitary building nestled into the hillside. It shone brilliant white in the lingering moonlight, and Rydia realized this was their destination.

                Edge motioned her to stop as he surveyed the area for a guard. When he was sure the building was defenseless, he gestured her forward. Edge pulled at the door, but discovered it locked.

                Rydia sighed. "A locked door," she noted with exasperation. "As I thought—a bad idea from the start."

                Edge looked utterly offended when he glanced at her from under his ridiculous white mage hood. "How quick you are to underestimate my skills," he muttered, fiddling for something under his robe.

                Rydia waited, anxiously keeping watch. She half expected someone to jump out at them from the darkness. She tapped her finger on her hip impatiently, and then heard a pop and a click, followed by a stifled triumphant exclamation.

                She glanced at the door in surprise, as Edge stood to push it open.

                "A locked door," he scoffed, shaking his head at her. "And you thought this would present a problem."

                She shoved his shoulder as he chuckled his way through the entry.

                She wasn't sure what to expect when she saw the building's interior. She had imagined a tunnel or a passageway carved into the rock that burrowed through the ocean, but not a set of runes inscribed in the floor emitting an ethereal green light. It flickered as though it were ablaze, and when she studied it further, she could see images fluttering in the green haze, pictures from far away.

                "Is that—" she started to say and then clamped down on her words when the image of a knight in armor shimmered across the green flame.

                "Baron?" Edge finished for her. "It most certainly is."

                Rydia walked gingerly around the portal, amazed by it. Wherever she stood in relation to the portal, she could view a different portion of the adjacent room in Baron. The knight hadn't seemed to realize she was there, and she flicked her gaze back to Edge. "Is it safe?"

                He shrugged. "The mages I spied on seemed to think it was mostly safe. Though—" he trailed off, rubbing his chin.

                "Though?" Rydia inquired anxiously, hoping he would go on.

                "They mentioned something about being magically disincorporated and put back together again. Apparently it's...occasionally gone wrong."

                Rydia slowly raised a brow. "Gone...wrong?"

                He looked back at her placidly. "I'm willing to take a risk. Are you?"

                "Are you _sure_ Rosa traveled this way?"

                "As sure as I am that you're as curious about this device as I am," he replied.

                She pressed her lips together stubbornly. "You're sure of that, are you?"

                He smiled, and her annoyance faded to sheer curiosity. She _did_ want to know how this device worked. It seemed so similiar in design to the portals she had seen in the Feymarch and in the Tower, but it was different somehow.   

                All they had to do was step on it...

                "Are you ready?" Edge asked after allowing her a moment to gather her nerves.

                She crossed her arms, staring at the unnatural flames. "What happens if—"

                Edge didn't let her finish the thought, taking hold of her arm and tugging her after him onto the portal.

                "Edge!" she shrieked at the last moment, and heard her voice being fragmented, as if it were occupying many places at once. She was nothing but a floating consciousness, her body left in some forgotten place. Images flicked on and off in her mind's eye, vistas she had never seen and times she had never experienced. The relentless stream of magic propelled her onward, but she felt the tax on her mind—the demand magic often made of its host. When she felt she was at the end of her resources, she became aware that she was being deposited somewhere, and anxiously held an imaginary breath she wasn't physically capable of holding in her present form.

                Her mind rushed into her body, and it took several minutes to become reacquainted with her senses again. She stood in a dark stone room, and she blinked, moving jerkily and bumping into Edge who stood beside her, similarly dazed.

                "That—" he mumbled, fumbling over his own words. "Was quite an experience."

                Rydia clutched her temples, feeling an overwhelming headache forming. "I can't believe you dragged me with you!" she angrily retorted, swatting him.

                "You would have gone anyway—you were taking too long," he answered, doubling over to wince at a headache of his own.

                "You!" a new voice accosted them.

                They both looked up, having forgotten about the guard.

                "We're with Sir Cecil!" Rydia quickly announced, holding up both hands.

                Edge glanced at her in bafflement. "Are you programmed to say that?" he asked.

                "Who are you!" the guard demanded.

                Edge stood to his full height and threw back the hood of his white mage robe, trying to be impressive. "We've come in search of the Lady Rosa on Cecil's behalf."

                The guard was puzzled, words forming on his lips that he couldn't spit out. "On his—"

                "Behalf," Edge repeated, guiding the guard through the conversation. "Lover's spat."

                The guard swallowed, and then looked at them anew. "Aren't you—" he queried, pointing at Rydia's hair.

                She rolled her eyes. "The summoner, Rydia," she supplied.

                The guard then looked at Edge. "The lady Rosa, you say? I did see her some time ago. She didn't look quite herself."

                "She and Cecil had a disagreement about his involvement in the war," Rydia explained.

                "By all means, go after her if you must. But I don't know where she's gotten to—it's been a few hours since my watch began."

                "Thank you," Edge assured the guard, leading the way out of the room, and then looked back at the man before exiting. They shared the same expression and shrugged. "Women," they both intoned.

                 "What's that supposed to mean?" Rydia demanded as she shoved him out of the building.

                "Always so dramatic," Edge answered with a sigh and a wide smile.

                "Says the man wearing a white mage's robes in order to sneak into the women's dormitory," Rydia pointed out vehemently.

                He grinned at her, and then came to a full stop, looking around the city, perplexed.

                "What's the matter?" Rydia asked, peering out at the streets and tall buildings around them, and wondering what the problem was.

                "I've never been here before," he announced.

                Rydia strangled a groan in her throat. "And here you are so sure of yourself, leading the way without a clue as to the direction."

                He laughed. "You didn't have to follow," he reminded her.

                "This way," she said, pointing down a road to their right.

               

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Upon reflection, Rydia wasn't the best leader herself, and after several wrong turns and doubled-back routes, they arrived at the castle gates.

                Edge suggested they use the postern gate, and much to Rydia's surprise, it was unlocked.

                "The _real_ reason Golbez took them over so easily," Edge mused with a significantly raised brow.

                "There aren't many people here _left_ to keep watch," Rydia reminded him as they walked across the bailey.

                "Are there _any_ guards left to keep watch?" Edge asked, brazenly turning circles while he walked, glimpsing the castle ramparts.

                "Keep your voice down," Rydia hissed, striding into the castle's interior and through the main foyer and into the western wing.

                Rydia led the way to the west tower, climbing the stairs through each landing until she arrived at the very top. She had expected to find Rosa there in Cecil's old quarters, but there was nothing but the blue light of early dawn seeping through the windows and a ticking clock on the wall.

                "She's not here," she said with disappointment.

                "Where else would she go?"

                Rydia shook her head, trying to think of alternatives. "I have no idea," she admitted, walking to one of the windows. There was a splash of light on the courtyard below and Rydia had a thought. She returned to the stairwell and began skipping down steps, knowing that Edge was following.

                They returned to the courtyard and Rydia followed the light she had seen. It led to a low roofed annex, burrowing into other portions of the keep, and its windows were nothing but arrow slits.

                Rydia opened the door and descended three quick steps into a long room lined with double layered bunks and gear racks. A few soldiers were sleeping, one with his foot dangling off of the upper bunk, but a few were huddled over a table. There was a black mage and two soldiers, and they were shuffling cards on a table around a brightly glowing lamp.

                Rydia's steps slowed, as she did not know these men, nor did she feel comfortable confronting them. Edge took the cue, and unapologetically stepped forward, causing the men to look up.

                "The white mages have their own barracks," one of the soldiers said, chewing on a wooden splinter he was using as a toothpick.

                Edge's brow crawled together as he frowned. "I'm not—"

                "From around here," Rydia interrupted him, shooting him a warning glance.

                The soldier set down his cards and squinted up at them both. "Where exactly are you from?"

                Rydia could tell Edge wanted to boast his heritage, and glared at him, hoping he wouldn't.

                "I'm—"

                "From Mysidia," Rydia finished for him, too anxious to let him continue. She could feel the heat in his gaze, and ignored it.

                The soldier nodded. "That explains why I didn't recognize you. What exactly are you doing here—in our barracks—in the middle of the night?"

                "Looking for the Lady Rosa," Edge answered, recovering from his annoyance at Rydia's intrusions.

                "The lady Rosa?" the man asked, raising his brows and exchanging looks with his companions. "What for?"

                "She is in possession of knowledge that we need," Edge lied. "Have you seen her?"

                The man sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Can't say that I have."

                The black mage at the table frowned. "You know, I think I heard a rumor that she had snuck in late in the evening. She might be in the east wing where the vaults are. She usually goes there when she's looking for something."

                "Thank you," Rydia said, pulling Edge away from the table where he had become engrossed with the game they had been playing.

                "Now you're taking liberties," she accused.

                "The man on my right was about to play an abysmal hand," he muttered while Rydia dragged him out the door.

                "The east wing," she said to herself, trying to collect her bearings. The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky pink and light blue. Rydia followed the direction of the sun, navigated the keep's inner halls, and emerged again in the east courtyard.

                There was only one path for them, and that was the east tower.

                They entered and found this tower much sparser than its twin on the castle's western side. There were ancient statues and alcoves with weapons inset above helmets and shields. Plaques adorned the walls between the alcoves, and there were two staircases. One leading up, and another leading down.

                "This is a particularly creepy wing," Edge observed, walking the room's perimeter.

                "What is this place," Rydia wondered, joining him in a perusal of the room's contents.

                "Looks like a memorial," Edge said, reading one of the plaques. "These are dedications to past heroes."

                "Why would Rosa come here?" Rydia asked, genuinely stumped.

                "He said something about vaults," Edge reminded her. "Perhaps Baron stores their books of magic somewhere near here. You always run off to your books whenever your mind is troubled. Perhaps Rosa does the same."

                "But where would they keep them?"

                "Somewhere dry, cool, and away from sunlight."

                "Underground?" Rydia asked, walking to the staircase leading down.

                "Why not?" he asked, stepping around her. "Is it just me, or is there a light down there?"

                Rydia looked and sure enough, there was a faint glow reflecting on some of the lower stairs.

                They walked down together, and the sound of their own footsteps was loud to their ears. The air chilled as the steps descended into the belly of the castle, and even the scent of the air changed. There was a cool draft that swirled around their legs, but it was crisp, not stale.

                When they reached the bottom, they arrived in a wide carpeted vault with suits of armor lining the walls. There were torches lit in sconces on the walls between them, and low shelves lined with scrolls and large leather bound books—a records room of sorts.

                Someone had been there before them, but there was no sign of them. There was, however, another staircase on the opposite end of the room. They descended this also, and noticed that the walls here were more roughly cut, the stone more unrefined, and the air cooler still. At the bottom of the stairs was another room, but this was not a simple vault, it was a grand hall with granite pillars arranged in rows down either side. Torches had been lit in sconces here as well, illuminating an unusual tableau of marble tombs with the carved likenesses of their occupants. There were dozens of tombs, in columns and rows, spanning into the dark recesses of the room, and beyond.

                Rydia's eyes peered ahead, and at last she saw the person they had come so far to find. Rosa was standing close to the edge of the light from her own torches, arms crossed. She was gazing at a statue that was larger than life and standing in the center of the wide aisle.

                The torches created harsh shadows, but as Rydia walked closer, she realized the statue to be an eight legged horse with a fearsome rider wielding a spear. 

                They approached Rosa from behind, and when they drew closer, Rydia finally broached the silence.

                "Rosa?" she asked, hoping not to startle her friend.

                Rosa jumped regardless, twisting her head at the intrusion. "Rydia—Edge?" she asked, bewildered. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

                "We asked around," Edge supplied.

                "How on earth did you get anywhere wearing those robes?" Rosa remarked, regarding him with disdain. "Honestly, you'd be a disgrace to the entire discipline."

                Edge bowed dramatically. "At your service, lady mage."

                This elicited a brief smile from Rosa before she rolled her eyes. "I thought I would just have a few moments of peace, and then the cavalry comes marching in."

                "What is this place?" Rydia asked, pointing to the slabs and at the statue.

                "The catacombs," Rosa explained, nodding at the tombs. "They span a great portion of the hill beneath the castle."

                "This is where you come to clear your head?" Edge asked incredulously.

                "Well, no, but one of the other mages had informed me of something peculiar and—"

                "Rosa!" a voice called from behind them.

                They all turned to look and saw Cecil striding toward them with a stern look on his face. Rydia was surprised he had been following them all this time or that he had found them so quickly.

                 “Rosa, what are you doing in here?” Cecil asked when he had finally joined them.

                Rosa  didn't answer at first, staring at him with the determination of one about to partake in a battle.

                "Don’t go," she said finally.

                Cecil took a few steps closer, and Rosa, a step back. "Rosa, I have to," he said, trying to reason with her.

                "Why,  because some prophecy you received on a mountaintop told you to? Because the elder of Mysidia thinks you should?" she asked. "There must be another way. There must be a way for us to stop the tower of Babil, of finding a way to counteract the crystals, that doesn’t involve going to the moon. Think of it, Cecil," she pled. "To leave the earth? No mortal has ever done so, it’s nothing but a rumor. The great whale? A vessel built by a people that no one has seen in over a thousand years? They’re gone."

                "The elder thinks they may still live," Cecil interrupted her.

                "Who was the voice that claimed to be your father?" Rosa insisted.

                "Rosa—"

                " Your father is _here_ , in Baron," she  shouted. "Here, among everything we have known. Odin raised you. This kingdom trusts you. What reason do you  have to throw your life away by traveling to a place of legend? The twin moon?"

                "I don't think we have much choice," he argued.

                "I’m afraid for you," she persisted. "We have already done the impossible so many times over, that this should hardly surprise me, but we are being asked to travel to a place where no one has ever been. What if it’s a trap, another of Golbez’s machinations? What if what we ought to do is gather what allies we have left, march on Eblan, and take the tower by force? Between the remaining airships, our magic, and the Eidolons, surely, we must  be able to do something."

                "The source of your magic are the very crystals shielding the tower," Cecil replied.

                "Yes, exactly. What if we drained enough of their power to weaken the shield?"

                "I don’t think it works that way, Rosa. Their power is enormous. A few mages will have no effect.”

                "You don't know that," she protested.

                "And you do?" he asked.

                "Cecil, what if there's no coming back from the moon?"

                Cecil sighed, straightening his shoulders. "You and I both know, Rosa, that there's no coming back from any of this—no matter where that takes us. What is this really about?"

                 Rosa ducked her chin. “I came here to be sure of something,” she revealed.

                “To be sure of what?”

                “That you would come looking," she answered. "And to be sure that something else was true. This man," she said, pointing to the statue behind her. "He was my father, just as he was yours. But whose voice was it on Mount Ordeals? Who was calling you, Cecil, and only you?

                “I don’t know who called me to the moon, Rosa,” Cecil admitted. “But this is twice now that I’ve felt sure of my purpose. That there is something I must do.”

                “And then what?” Rosa asked. “Who are you becoming? If you stop Golbez, and we find the great whale, and everything we hope for comes true, who will take the throne of Baron? What about us?”

                “Us?” Cecil asked.

                “Do you want me with you, Cecil? Have I not proven myself to you?” she asked, lifting her eyes to his.

                Rydia glanced at Cecil, and saw his perplexed expression.  “Of course I want you with me," he told her. "But I also don’t want to lose you.”

                “That’s interesting," she retorted. "So I'm to stay behind while you pursue your destiny alone?”

                Cecil frowned, not comprehending.

                “ You were the king’s ward," Rosa continued. "You were his protégé. You were going to be knighted, become captain of the red wings, and you and I—but now.... Now you are a person I hardly recognize. You are involved in a prophecy older than Mysidia. You’ve been called to the moon. I feel as though I don’t know you at all.”

                “I want you to find out who I'm becoming at my side. Please, come back to Mysidia.”

                Rydia heard Edge clear his throat and could see him looking askance at her with disgust written all over his face. She imagined this was all the sentimentality he could stomach, and glared back at him.

                “You want me there, yet you exclude me from the meetings," Rosa continued. "You haven’t spoken to me since Kain deserted us. Did you think I knew?”

                “Knew what?”

                “Knew that Kain had feelings for me?”

                “Rosa, this is hardly the time…”

                “Did you think that my affections were divided between the two of you?” she insisted.

                “Rosa—

                “Because I have loved no one else since we were children but you. I have rejoiced at your triumphs, I have honed my healing craft for you, and I will be the person at your back protecting you from the reach of your enemies. You  have to trust me. You have to speak to me.”

                “And you came seeking Odin?” he asked, baffled, looking at the statue behind her.

                “I came seeking a king,” she answered. “I came in search of what was left of a man I once knew, in the hopes that I might find him again—in you. I’m afraid that you'll forget where you came from when this ends. That this prophecy will wrench you away indefinitely. I need you here. Baron needs you, despite whatever inheritance you are coming into."

                Cecil’s gaze dropped to the floor between them. “It is possible that my parentage hails from a strange place, and that I am descended from a people out of legend. I don’t fully know what is expected of me, but Rosa, of all the people who have shared in my life, you have meant the most to me. I do not blame you for Kain. He is a grown man responsible for his own actions. I need your steady presence and your company. I need you to straighten the path before me as you always seem to do. We should not be in a crypt when there is work to be done.”

                “And what about after the war, when all of this madness ends?” Rosa asked quietly.

                “We shall see,” Cecil answered with a heavy sigh.

_We shall see, then, shan’t we? s_ aid a rumbling voice behind them.

                Rydia’s gaze slid to the side, just over her shoulder at the statue of the horse and rider. She felt the air prickle with energy, a stirring of magic out of antiquity.           

                The pressure in the room built until she gritted her teeth, sensing an entity being drawn from the ether. A hair-raising whinny trumpeted from the mouth of the eight-legged horse as it came to life, shedding stone like caked mud after a roll in the fields. The four of them took jerky backwards steps, aghast at the statue's transformation.

                An _Eidolon?_ Rydia grappled with the thought. And _here_ of all places?

                The king sat astride his horse and adjusted his grip on the spear in his hand. Her mind reeled with questions, coupled with the very real fear that this test might be one she was not prepared to face.

                “Long has this castle been rooted in the bones of our ancestors. There are secrets here hearkening back to the first kings," Odin's rich voice boomed from beneath his helmet. His eyes were like black coals with a blazing ember in their center; pinpricks of flame and magic that made a mockery of the humanity they must have once possessed. They were now a window into some fearsome and forgotten place where magic governed the soul and bound it to eternal existence.  His face was pallid and wraithlike, but stern. "You have come in search of a king—when none was named in my absence. I have been imbued with the power to decide," he proclaimed. "This kingdom shall not be left leaderless, not by the powers of darkness nor by any schemes yet in motion. You were my student once—my son."

                Rydia felt her blood run cold. When she had set out from Mysidia to retrieve her friend, she hadn't expected _this._ The four of them continued to take backwards steps, away from the horse's shod hooves, and out of the reach of theking atop his back.

                "Odin," Rosa murmured, her expression mortified.

                "Stand up and face me," the former king challenged. "And we shall see what mettle you _truly_ possess."


	26. One Does Not Simply Walk Into...

 

                Rydia's eyes swept over the ghost king, at the spear he held balanced in his hand, and at the scimitar that hung at his waist, hearkening to the crescent moon.

                "Odin—" Rosa choked out. "How can you—an Eidolon?"

                "One does not strike down the king of Baron in cold blood and not expect the spirits to lodge complaint. I have transcended unto the immortal realm," he replied, his voice low and rasping.

                "Does that mean he hath transcended to immortal speech, too?" Edge whispered to Rydia, leaning toward her.

                "Rydia?" Rosa asked, staring at her wide-eyed.

                Rydia shook her head, similarly stunned.

                "I thought the Eidolons were born in another age," Cecil said numbly, staring at the king on his eight-legged horse.

                "Brandish your weapons," Odin repeated, tightening his grip on the reins of his steed.

                "Your majesty, I can't possibly—" Cecil objected.

                " _Move!"_ Edge shouted, pushing Rosa out of the way of the king's spear hurtling through the air. It was ten feet in length, it's tip double pronged with glowing runes. It embedded itself into one of the catacomb pillars, shattering stone and wobbling.

                None of them had hardly any time to react before the king's steed charged forward. Rydia bolted to one side, but the king's gauntlet caught her, hitting her hard on the shoulder, and sending her lurching into the aisle behind her.

                She stumbled to the floor, bracing herself with her hands with a gasped exhale.

                A challenge with an Eidolon? _Here?_  

                She scrambled to her feet, and saw everyone else had scattered between pillars and funerary slabs in an effort to escape the king's reach.

                The horse reared and whirled on its haunches, the spear once more in Odin's hand. The king's pin prick eyes caught Rydia's from beneath his horned helm, and she turned to run down the length of the aisle to escape him. She could hear the hooves pounding on stone behind her as the king gave pursuit, and ducked behind a pillar just in time to avoid the spear as it was thrown again. It caught the hem of her robe, singing fabric before embedding into a slab beside her. The stone sarcophagus rattled as the likeness of a former noble was jarred from its resting place, and she glanced down and saw the sizzle of magic as it crept along the fibers of her borrowed robe.

                Wide-eyed, Rydia crawled behind an adjacent sarcophagus, and heard the horse's nostrils sniff the air for her scent. She stilled her own breathing, hoping to escape notice. She was no match for this Eidolon with any weapon she possessed, but she had magic. The incantation for Thundaga jumped to the front of her thoughts, but she knew that to chant would reveal her hiding place.

                Instead, she closed her eyes and waited. She heard crumbled stone fall to dust on the floor as the spear was retrieved from the slab behind her, and she opened her eyes, preparing to spring.

                A grunt was followed by another shower of rock as the sarcophagus she was leaning against was violently extruded by the spear tip. Rydia cried out, surprised, and rolled to her feet, running again. She dodged slab after slab, zig zagging in and out of pillars as the crypt continued to sprawl out before her. How many dead were housed here, she wondered, as her breath burned in her lungs.

                She ran until she couldn't hear hooves, and to where the torches had ceased being lit. She turned, and realized the king had given up his pursuit, having gone in search of other quarry. Her eyes surveyed the vaulted corridor, and she saw that he had remained in the main chamber where his horse had enough room to maneuver. She could hear the sound of metal striking metal, but above that, she heard the steed's unnatural cry. She crept back the way she'd come, slowly retracing her steps so that she was closer to her friends, but out of the king's line of sight.

                _Odin,_ she turned the name over in her mind. The name, or rather the story, sounded familiar to her. She sifted through memories as if she were turning through the pages of a book, and the story slowly came to light. An ancient king who rode Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse—he had been bested when lightning struck his blade. It was strange, she heard Leviathan's voice in her ear as if he were telling her the story himself. _This_ was what he had mentioned the last time they were in the Feymarch.

                She crept closer to the former king of Baron, and wondered if the same Odin her friends had known as a father, was the very same as the long-ago king. There remained a glaring problem, as she looked on. Which blade was meant to be struck? The spear—or the scimitar?

                Rydia finally drew close enough to the main chamber to see what was happening in detail. Edge was striking from the shadows, precise and swift; ducking in and out of pillars on the same side of the aisle as herself. Normally, Edge's efforts might have been laudable, but to the king, the ninja was merely obnoxious, as shuriken ricocheted off of his armor. Odin responded by thrusting his spear into the recesses between pillars at random, smashing stone and sending up dust in the hope of removing Edge as an annoyance.

                Rydia smiled, knowing that Odin would have a hard time of _that._ Edge was too good at being obnoxious on _and_ off the battlefield. 

                 She slunk to the side and peered around another pillar, planning her next move. _Thundaga_ she thought, preparing herself for where to direct its power. Where was the king's armor weakest—she wondered, and then ducked frantically when an errant arrow from the opposite side of the hall glanced the king's side and skittered wildly to Rydia's hiding place. She felt the arrow tip slice the fabric of her sleeve as she pressed herself to the granite pillar. She glanced around the pillar once more and saw a glimpse of Rosa's shimmering robe before it vanished into the shadows opposite her. Odin's attention was turned from Edge and to the source of the failed attack—toward Cecil and Rosa.

                Rydia began to chant, keeping her eyes fixed on the king. She spoke the words of power, gathering the magic to herself like a warm cloak. The melody was frantic, erratic. Words were tumbling from her mouth faster than she could think them—they were so automatic—when the king vanished. He was all but a flicker, a shimmer of light, and then he was gone. Rydia's melody was ruined, the rhythm broken with her concentration, as she waited with the last words poised on her tongue.

                _Where was he?_

                There was a disturbance farther down the hall, and an explosion of shattered rock and a resounding boom that accompanied it. The king reappeared farther down the chamber with his scimitar held in one hand and his spear in the other. A wide perimeter of smashed sarcophagi and defaced pillars surrounded him. If the bodies within the tombs had been living, the carnage would have been devastating. As it was, bones and raiments of burial shrouds littered the stone floor. The horse reared and turned, head thrashing wildly, while Odin readied himself for another attack, tossing his spear so that it rested better in the palm of his hand.

                What _was_ that attack? Rydia glanced down her own aisle and saw Edge running toward her, covered in dust.

                "Are you alright?" she asked when he drew closer.

                He sped past her, pulling her up and with him in the process. "Leave no ground to run to," he explained in a rush. She looked over her shoulder and saw Odin's horse galloping toward them.

                "What did you do?" Rydia demanded.

                "Distracted him," he replied tersely, dragging her along.

                Rydia began to chant again, noting with concern that Edge was leaving a trail of blood droplets behind him. His arm was bleeding from  several gashes, no doubt from when the stone had shattered and been propelled through the air. She couldn't dwell on it. She was trying to reclaim the rhythm she had lost, words whose meanings were as near to her as they were foreign. She began to see the spell take shape in her mind, threads of magic aligning and vibrating in just the right sequence, a hum of magic ripe on the air; but just as it was nearing completion, an intense surge of pressure swept past her. Rydia felt herself thrown from her feet, flipped through the air, and her arm wrenched free of Edge's. She hit the floor with enough force to hear something crack, but was too numb to know if it was her own bones that had broken or the stone.

                The world stood still and upside down. Sounds collided with each other and dust coated her eyelashes. When her vision ceased showing her doubles, she sat up, her ears still ringing.

                As she twisted around, she saw hopped to his feet and slid his katanas free of their sheaths, their blades glinting in the torchlight. It was a strange effect, him standing amidst the dust thrown up from the shattered slabs around them. It seemed as though he belonged there in the haze and half-light, almost a ghost himself in his white robe. Rydia tried to push herself to standing, to understand their precarious situation better, but her arm failed to support her. The bones in her wrist were turned at an unnatural angle, broken by her fall. She cried out, pushing herself toward a pillar with her legs until she could brace herself against it to standing.

                Arrows whistled through the air, and the king's horse bucked and reared at the distraction, turning from Edge and his swords. A pair of Rosa's arrows struck the horse's rump, and the animal screeched a sound Rydia was certain no natural horse could utter. The king urged his frenzied horse into a charge, directly toward Rosa's hiding place. Odin twirled his spear in the air around him, the tip of it cutting the air with a whistling hum. He readied himself to throw the spear, when Cecil bolted out from around another pillar at the king's side, hurling his sword at the horse's hind legs. The sword severed the crucial tendons on two of its back legs from hock to fetlock before it skittered across the catacomb floor. The beast stumbled, favoring his wounded legs, and whirled, giving Odin the time to swivel in the saddle and thrust the lance sideways at Cecil. Cecil deflected the mighty spear with his shield, but just barely. The lance left a blackened indentation in the convex surface of the shield, the metal warped despite its diamond studded face. Cecil staggered back, and ducked behind a pillar once more, avoiding another strike from the spear that shredded the rock face of the pillar mere inches away.

                Rydia had come to a morbid fascination with the spear in the king's keeping. This was no ordinary weapon wielded by a weapons master, this was a weapon of the gods of old. The Eidolons were not entities who held to the rules of the mortal realm, she reminded herself, nor were the powers they wielded any less impressive than the raw magic from which they were born.

                The assault against Cecil was intense and violent, the king's strikes becoming more focused, more precise, as he strung his movements together. Cecil bolted down the side aisle, trying to draw another weapon as he ran. The king was gaining ground and advantage, as the pillars had become fewer and the tombs, obliterated. There were few places for Cecil to run where he had protection from the king's weapon. Another thrust of the spear sent more stone flying, and Cecil rolled, hoisting his shield before him to block another blow.

                The strike from the king's weapon was deflected to the side, throwing Cecil off balance, but sparing him from being skewered.

                During Cecil's mad dash down the side aisle, Rydia had lost track of Edge, but now she saw him, sprinting down the corridor in the king's blind spot.

                _What was he doing?_

Then Rydia saw the hilt of Cecil's sword plunged into a pile of rubble and saw a plan take shape. Edge's long strides quickly covered ground , and just as he plunged for the sword, grabbing it deftly and rotating the grip on the fly, the king's horse cocked its ears backwards, sensing a threat from behind. The king glanced behind him as well, seeing Edge hurl Cecil's sword like a dart past his horse's withers. The sword dug into the mortar of the wall behind Cecil, but Odin, recognizing Edge as a variable that needed to be dealt with, swept his spear back, capturing the ninja between a wall and a toppled pillar. The spear lanced through Edge's shoulder, black flames eliciting green sparks as he was driven into the wall behind him. From where she stood, Rydia didn't see Edge fall, but she heard the sickening sound of the spear tip scraping stone and flesh upon retrieval. She tried to prevent a mental image from forming.

                With Edge removed, the king was free to focus again on Cecil, but another arrow had whistled out of the darkness again, piercing one of the horse's front legs. The horse's leg buckled, and before it could correct its balance, another arrow sang from the shadows, embedding into another of the animal's front legs. The horse went down keening, thrashing its head wildly side to side; the sound causing Rydia to grit her teeth.

                Odin was hardly phased by this, and slid from his mount's back with military efficiency. His armored boots clunked heavily on the stone floor, as he faced off with Cecil who had run to free his sword from the wall, carrying only his shield.

                The king threw his spear to the ground with a metallic clang, but took up the scimitar, the gleaming arc of its blade bright in the darkness. He raised the blade, his stance widening as he prepared to deliver a decisive blow in close quarters.

                Rydia darted forward, and began to chant again, quickly, preserving all of her spell's complex and precise articulation. She drew the crystals' power to herself, feeling her hair rise from the static as the spell formed completion in her mind's eye. Thundaga sizzled through the air, causing a white blaze that illuminated the corridor brighter than the torches ever could. Sparks popped and slid jaggedly from floor to ceiling, a series of bolts arcing along the king's blade and through its grip, up his gauntleted arm, to the spiked pauldrons atop his shoulders. Odin lurched and jerked violently, as the raw energy of the lightning channeled through him into the ground at his feet. With smoking armor, he fell to his knees.

                Another well-placed arrow wrenched the scimitar from the king's fingers entirely, and when the light from the spell had faded, the king was as mute as the statue he had once been.

                Rydia gracelessly slowed to a stop, and it was several minutes before anyone dared move. Finally the king took in a deep breath and stood, his armor creaking and groaning in protest.

                "You have bested me," the king declared in a low voice, bowing his head to Cecil.

                Cecil was shocked. Rydia was shocked. One spell to take down such a fearsome Eidolon?

                "You have found allies true and sound," the king continued. "Often have I wondered what man you would become. I am pleased to see a man who shed his darkness for that of the light. These times require a torch to be shone upon them, and you are fully suited for this task. Henceforth you shall be recognized as the successor of my line, and heir to the throne of Baron."

                Cecil bowed clumsily before his former king. "Your majesty, I am humbled."

                "And you," he said, turning to Rydia, who had stumbled closer. "To you, I grant my name. Your voice I will heed, should you e'er require my aide."

                Rydia bowed her head, sensing herself being imparted with his true name, a brief hum of magic that tingled her senses before it left only an impression on her subconscious mind.  

                "I must leave you now," he announced, retrieving his spear, and returning to his horse. "I must return to the sleep my present form demands I take. Fare thee well, my son and fellow warriors. May your swords and deeds strike true in this present darkness."

                Odin mounted his steed and hoisted his spear, pointing it toward the heavens. Their injuries were gone, and Odin's armor, untarnished. No sooner had the horse reared, its front legs pawing the air, did the spell of encasement consume them again. From spear tip to hoof, the king and his fearsome horse were turned to stone. Unmoving, unflinching, just as they'd been before.

                "I can't believe how lucky you were," Rosa breathed half a second later, running to Cecil and throwing her arms around his neck to kiss his cheek. Almost instantly, she had released him again to rush to the opposite side of the hall. Rydia glanced to where her friend had gone, and saw Edge's still form crumpled against the wall, blood pooling around the gaping wound in his shoulder, seeping to his waist. His head hung across his chest like a limp doll, and from this distance, Rydia couldn't determine whether or not he was breathing.

                "Always the risk taker," Rosa muttered as she drew close, clearing dust and debris away from Edge and the wound, her fingers glowing with the light of libra. "Crystals," she murmured again, shaking her head.

                Rydia walked closer, feeling apprehension rise. Had he fallen and been down too long to revive? Were the powers imbued in Odin's spear more deadly than she realized?

                Cecil distracted her, pulling her aside. Rydia looked up at him, and then questioningly at where his fingers had gripped her forearm above the badly twisted wrist.

                "Your wrist," Cecil observed with a frown.

                "Your arm," Rydia duly pointed out, nodding to the arm he was holding close to his ribs.

                Cecil smiled wanly, and closed his eyes, chanting the soft melody of his own white magic. Rydia watched in astonishment, as she did every time, as her bones and tendons were reset in their proper arrangement; every fiber and sinew being knit back together as if the injury had never happened.

                "I love magic," she said appreciatively to Cecil, and then frowned at his arm. "Did you break it when you took that blow to your shield?"

                Cecil looked down, and shrugged with a heavy sigh. "Bruised but not broken."

                "At least we know Kokkol can make a good shield," Rydia replied, looking over her shoulder again at where Rosa was helping Edge.

                 "He's been down a while," Cecil observed, stepping past Rydia to where Rosa was kneeling beside their companion, chanting.

                Rydia listened to the words her friend was saying, at the steady rhythm. It was calm, soothing, like a lullaby, and so different from her own frenetic spell casting, that rose and fell with innumerous tempos and rhythms. She hadn't thought of magic quite this way before her conversation with Edge in Mysidia, and now she watched him, hoping he might wake up again so they could continue their conversation.

                Rosa's spell was lengthy, and though Edge's chest had begun to rise and fall in shallow breaths, he had yet to regain consciousness. Rydia knelt down beside Rosa, her hands gripping the skirt of her robes. What was taking so long?

                "There was a rumor that the first king of Baron wielded a spear named Gungnir," Cecil said a moment later. "It's tip was ensorcelled so that it would claim the life of whoever it struck, no matter the gravity of the wound."

                "Can the effects be reversed?" Rydia asked.

                Cecil shook his head. "I don't know. Until now, we didn't know that an ordinary man could become an Eidolon either."

                Rydia sighed, her thoughts returning to the statue behind them. "It is strange," she admitted. "But the magic of the world is stirring. With the crystals out of sync with each other and the tower activated, who knows what old powers have been unleashed."

                Edge suddenly groaned, drawing all of their attentions to where he rested against the wall. His eyes opened slowly, and he looked at each of them in confusion, and then at Rosa who was still focused on the wound in his shoulder.

                "Did I miss all the talk of love and fealty?" he asked weakly.

                "You did," Cecil told him with a wry smile.

                "Damn," Edge muttered, closing his eyes again. "I feel as though I died for nothing."

                "By the way," Cecil asked, glancing at the shoulder wound that was slowly being knitted together. "Were you really gone?"

                Edge raised his brows, both eyes still closed. "There was a definite separation of my soul from its mortal coil," he quipped and then grimaced. "Very unpleasant."

                "You're lucky," Rosa said, finally finishing her incantation and rocking back on her heels. "Any longer, and we would have lost you for good."

                Edge groaned again, trying to roll his shoulder. "Why does it still feel like there's a rock in my shoulder?" he asked, looking down.

                "I couldn't heal all of the wound," Rosa admitted, tightening her lips into a straight line. "There was a significant amount of damage and Odin's magic to undo, after all."

                Edge stared at Rosa, and the white mage stared back at him. "There's something else, isn't there?" he asked sourly.

                "The wound is sound enough to heal on its own, and most of what you feel is bruising."

                Edge made a face, smiling darkly at the situation. "This is punishment, isn't it?"

                Rosa made an innocent face and stood. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied.

                Edge tried to roll his shoulder again. "Are you sure this wound is sound?" he asked skeptically.

                "You're not going to bleed to death," Rosa remarked, placing her hand on Cecil's shoulder as she walked past him into the wider corridor.

                Rydia stood as well and stepped aside, as Cecil bent down to help Edge to his feet. The ninja accepted the assistance reluctantly, frowning all the while.

                They all returned to the main corridor with Odin's statue between them and the stairwell that led to the rest of the keep. They were in the process of recovering their equipment, when a babble of voices and the sound of feet suddenly descended on the catacombs.

                Rydia widened her path around the statue so she could see what was happening, and saw a small detachment of guards enter the space led by a woman with red hair—Astrid.

                The guards paused when they reached the base of the stairs, staring at the destruction of the catacombs with dismay. Slowly, the Baronians stepped farther into the corridor, avoiding fallen pillars and stepping over skeletal husks that had been disturbed from their rest.

                When Astrid saw the four of them, her face was a mixture of surprise and outrage. She strode toward them, gesturing to the destruction around her.

                "We thought Golbez had snuck back in," she shouted at them. "It's barely dawn and the whole castle is shaking. What in the nine circles of hell is going on down here?"

                Before they could explain, Astrid drew close enough to make out the figure of the statue in the center of the hall. She stopped stark still. "Where did _that_ come from?" she demanded.

                "Astrid, it is good to see you again," Cecil said, trying to smooth things over.

                She speared him with a glare underscored by baggy eyes. "It's not even dawn, Cecil. What in hell were you doing down here—or even here at all for that matter? I thought you were going to Eblan?"

                "We've been to Eblan and back," Cecil explained. "We were in Mysidia until a few hours ago."

                "Mysidia," Astrid repeated, looking at each of them. "I suppose that explains the mage garb," she remarked, nodding at Rydia and Edge who each shared a glance. "But how did you get _here_? There's no airship in the docks."

                "Serpent's Road," Rosa supplied. 

                "You traveled the Serpent's Road? That's brave," she said, planting her hands on her hips. "What happened to your airship?"

                Cecil grimaced and cleared his throat. "Your father."

                She looked directly at Cecil, and the guards at her side went slack jawed. "My father," she echoed.

                "He's alive, Astrid."

                "Well, I knew _that,"_ she complained, waving her hand. "But where the hell is he?"

                "We last saw him in the underworld where he made modifications to our airship," Cecil explained.

                "And now he's lazing about, no doubt?" she mused, chewing on her lip. "So where is the airship? In Mysidia?"

                "It's in bad shape," Cecil revealed.

                Astrid nodded as if she'd expected this. "Any ship flown by you usually ends up that way," she tartly replied. "Now about _this_ mess," she added, pointing around them. "Please don't tell me you were digging for buried treasure down here or something equally useless. It's a _disaster._ "

                "The rumors were true," Rosa said finally, speaking up for the first time.

                "The rumors?" Astrid asked. "That the catacombs were haunted? Rosa, I never took you for a superstitious sap."

                "We encountered Odin—or his spirit," Cecil said, avoiding the existence of the Eidolon altogether.

                "Odin," Astrid said, staring at the statue again. "Am I to believe that _that_ statue came to life and went on a rampage in the catacombs?" she asked, glancing at them in disbelief.

                "Yes. And the horse," Cecil answered.

                Astrid's eyes went wide as she looked around the room again. "Crystals," she muttered. "Who knew a ghost could be so pissed. Is he, you know, sleeping?"

                "His spirit is at rest, yes," Rosa replied.

                "Good. I've never liked horses, let alone eight legged ones," Astrid announced, and then studied them again. "You all look terrible."

                "Says the one covered in oil," Rosa flatly remarked.

                "Airships require building," Astrid haughtily replied, sticking up her nose.

                "Air _ships_?" Cecil asked. "You've finished the rest of Cid's fleet?"

                Astrid grinned. "Oh please, that was child's play. And what with the twin moon being so strange of late, I'd say that's a good thing. I was going to take a ship to Fabul this morning. Speaking of which, where are you headed?"

                "Headed?" Cecil asked.

                "Why did you come here to Baron if not for news on how the gathering of the fleet was going?"

                "I came here for Rosa," Cecil pointed out.

                Astrid raised a brow as she looked at the white mage. "Rosa, were you fancying yourself a damsel again?"

                Rosa crossed her arms. "I came here for other reasons," she huffed.

                "Well, now that you're here, do you want to save me a trip?" Astrid asked, redirecting the conversation. "I figured you'd like to speak to the king of Fabul yourself."

                "Astrid, you yourself pointed out that the twin moon has been acting strangely. The elder of Mysidia is relying on us to be present when he raises an ancient ship from the depths. We can't tarry here long."

                "The elder of Mysidia. Ancient ship," Astrid mused. "This sounds like a lot of when's and if's. Meanwhile I have a fleet of ships waiting to be delivered to prepare for a final assault—which was your plan, by the way—and I'm short on capable pilots."

                "Astrid, we simply can't abandon what we were doing. The ship the elder is planning to raise is destined for the moon, where we too are bound."           

                "Speaking of the twin moon, what do you know of it?" Astrid asked.

                "The tower of Babil, it's influencing the orbit of the moon," Cecil explained. "That's what the elder of Mysidia told me."

                "How much time do we have?"

                "At least until the next full moon."

                "I can already see the eastward star between the moons. It's only been four days," Astrid said, screwing her features into a frown.

                "We don't have much time, then," Cecil said.

                "Then neither do we. I could use a skilled pilot to fly to Fabul."

                "Cecil could return to Mysidia and we could go to Fabul," Rosa suggested.

                "After all of the work I just spent on coming here for you? Cecil asked, offended. "No. We all stay together. Even if that means we all go to Fabul."

                Edge and Rydia both glanced at Cecil and Rosa. "Really?" they asked.

                "There's just a matter of how we're getting back," Cecil mused.

                "I was going to take a ship to Damcyan," Astrid mentioned. "But now I see I'll be going to Mysidia to fix the ship you wrecked. Go to Fabul with Mid, and I'll come for you there."

                "So organized," Cecil remarked.

                "Efficient," Astrid replied, flipping her red hair over her shoulder. "Will you go or not?"

                "The elder was still turning over the archives. That could take days," Rosa pointed out, looking at Cecil, whose brow was creased in thought.

                "To Fabul, then," Cecil relented. "But we can't delay there."

                "Me? Delay? Astrid asked innocently, "I'm not my father," she said, whirling on her heel, and leading them up the stairs.

                Rydia followed her friends out of the catacombs and heard snippets of their conversation while they climbed.

                "You really meant it that all of us stay together?" Rosa asked.

                Cecil looked back at her. "Rosa, I want you by my side. Why would I have come, if only to leave you here?"

                "To the ends of the earth?" she asked.

                "Of course," he replied.

                Rosa reached out to grip his hand and smiled.

 

..........................

               

                They exited the staircase and the east tower, stepping into the early morning sun. Rydia hung back with Edge whose white mage robe was stained with his own blood.

                "Thank goodness _that's_ over," Edge complained. "Any more talk of love and loyalty, and I was about to confess to Cecil myself."

                "I didn't realize you had such strong feelings for him," Rydia observed lightly, arching a brow.

                Edge grinned famously. "Yes, well, he's reliable, strong, insufferably noble--but he's missing something important..." he said, making a face.

                "What?" she asked, fearing his answer.

                "Green hair," he replied, and strode past her with a wink.

                She followed after him with a dark expression, sensing she had walked right into his trap. At least they had managed to re-group after all of the trouble in Mysidia, and for that she was grateful. Still, she could kick him.

 

..................

 

                Astrid led them to the airship docks where three ships were waiting. She turned so that she was walking backwards while talking to them. "I've been meaning to ask—but where's Kain? Wasn't he with you last time?" she inquired. "Don't tell me something happen to him in the underworld?"

                Rydia watched Cecil and Rosa exchange a look.

                "Kain is..." Cecil began.

                "He has decided to pursue other leads," Rosa finished.

                "He's done what?" Astrid demanded, her tone snappish.

                "We don't have time to go into it," Cecil interrupted her.

                Astrid pursed her lips and turned back around, pointing to a ship with a silver, black, and crimson flag on it. "That ship is bound for Fabul," she told them, annoyed, and led them toward the gangplank.

                Cecil, Rosa, and Edge climbed aboard with Mid, one of the engineers, but Astrid pulled Rydia aside.

                "Other leads?" she whispered. "What a load of rubbish. What actually happened?"

                Rydia's gaze rested on the wooden plank beneath them, not wanting to cause unnecessary trouble.

                "Kain is with Golbez," she said carefully, unsure of how to be politick about it.

                " _What?"_ Astrid hissed.

                Rydia glanced at where her companions were standing on the deck of the ship,  hoping they hadn't heard Astrid's outburst. Based on her previous experiences with the airship engineer's daughter, she knew her simple explanation was not going to be enough. At least she had tried.

                "We almost had the last of the dark crystals in our hands," she continued quietly. "But Golbez had his hooks in Kain again, and he stole the crystal from us. We haven't seen him since."

                "Mind control, again," Astrid complained, crossing her arms angrily. "I swear, I've never seen a kingdom of such weak-minded men. How is Golbez even able to do that?"

                "I have no idea," Rydia admitted, "But there's nothing we can do about Kain now, except to stop Golbez altogether. And to do that, we have to travel to the moon. You'll really come to Fabul to get us?" she asked after a moment, finally stepping up the plank.

                "You have my word," Astrid answered, chewing her lip, obviously disturbed and irritated by Kain's defection. "I'll be there as soon as I can get your ship up and running again."

                "Astrid, if the repairs will take longer than a day, just leave them," Cecil called down to her from the ship's deck.

                "Sure, sure," Astrid replied, waving him off. "Don't you worry. I can sort through my father's designs as easily as I can pen my name."

                "I'm not joking, Astrid!" Cecil repeated very seriously.

                "I'm aware, moon man," Astrid snipped back. "Have safe travels to Fabul. I'll see you in about two days' time!" she shouted up to them, as Mid helped Cecil pull the gangplank onto the ship so they could depart.

                Rydia stood at the railing, waving to the vivacious redhead below. As the sounds of preparation increased around her, she took a moment to survey the activity on board. Cecil had walked to the ship's controls and wheel, pulling levers until the ship came to life and there was a jolt as the vessel lifted from the ground.

                It would be a long flight to Fabul, she knew. One she would have to find some means of occupying her time.   

 

........................

 

                Hours had passed since they'd left Baron, and Rydia had exhausted Rosa of conversation. And, if she was honest, she had heard enough about Cecil's fine qualities to last her for days. Rydia had left Rosa in the ship's cabin, and climbed to the deck. Cecil was preoccupied with piloting the ship, but Edge was sitting on the ship's deck across from her, staring at the sky.

                She knew there was some danger in approaching him, but they had unfinished business, so she took a deep breath and walked toward him.

                Edge was leaning against the stairway railing with a pained expression on his face.

                "How's your shoulder?" she asked cautiously.

                He glanced at her to acknowledge her presence, and then touched the front of his shoulder hesitantly and frowned. "Non-fatal, but irritating."

                "What happened, exactly? I saw the attack, but I didn't see you fall," she said.

                "You did actually looked _concerned_ when I woke," he pointed out with a small smile.

                She pursed her lips as she sat down beside him. "My only concern was that we wouldn't be able to finish our argument from earlier," she replied matter-of-factly.

                "Ah, that," he said, then drew his brows together as he looked at her curiously. "Which one?"

                "The one where you started to tell me something interesting and then ran off," she answered tartly.

                "Which time?" he deflected.

                She made a disgusted sound in her throat. "Both, actually. Your mother, and what you  know of magic."

                "The answer is yes," he answered.

                She made a confused face. "Yes to what?"

                "Yes, my mother was trained in Mysidia, and yes, that's how I can tell the difference."

                Rydia sat back, bracing herself with her hands. "Really?" she asked. "How did she end up in Eblan, then? That all seems strange to me."

                "Most things seem strange to you," he replied pointedly.

                Rydia frowned, glaring at him. "Just like this errand we're now carrying out for Astrid."

                "It's a nice change of pace," Edge admitted, grimacing as he worked at his shoulder a little more.

                Rydia had a suspicion she wanted to verify. "This whole journey away from Mysidia had very little to do with Rosa, did it?"

                He looked at her, seemingly offended, but then grinned as he turned away.

                She leaned forward to look at him squarely, hoping to capture his attention.

                "You were just hoping to get out of Mysidia?" she realized.

                He looked back at her, not saying a word, only leveling his cool cat-like gaze on her.

                "Did you purposely plot Rosa and Cecil against each other, knowing this would happen?" she demanded.

                He opened his mouth, then closed it, reconsidering his answer.

                "That was simply a convenient happenstance," he finally replied.

                "You pulled me out of bed, forcibly dragged me to Baron; I broke my wrist fighting an Eidolon, and now we're running errands across the world for Astrid. All of this was _convenient,_ "she complained.

                He leaned toward her conspiratorially. "At least we are no longer responsible for looking through Mysidia's archives," he reminded her. "One more day and they would have had you locked in a library searching for answers that do not exist."

                "You don't know that they don't exist," Rydia protested, resting her hand on her waist such that her elbow jutted out at a sharp angle. "You unanimously decided that we leave the city. That's selfish, to say the least."

                "I admit that I have little love for Mysidia, but we would have been wasting our time there," he answered briskly. "We served no purpose. I find this quest far more interesting than translating ancient whale drawings into the common tongue."

                "So this isn't some scheme of yours to get out and see the world before it ends?"

                "I don't control Astrid, nor do I direct the winds. If someone asks that we go somewhere with their airship, who am I to complain?"

                Rydia tapped her finger on the railing, glaring at him. "You always complain," she announced, irritatedly.

                "I might want to see Fabul before the world is destroyed, true, but that was never my intention."

                "You really wanted to get out of Mysidia so badly that you don't mind being sent to the opposite corner of the world? What on earth happened to your mother there that has caused you to dislike them so much?"

                He looked out across the railing, at the clouds whisping by. "There were...several _differences_ of opinion in regards to her magic."

                "How so? Wasn't she a mage?" Rydia asked, perplexed by his answer.

                He sighed. "Her skills were—oh, how to say it—beyond their understanding."

                Rydia studied him. "She had magic like you," she ventured.

                He looked back at her, his gray-blue eyes intense in the sunlight, but said nothing.  

                "Fine then," Rydia huffed, looking away again. "I'll get an answer out of you eventually, you know," she vowed.

                He grinned. "Those are bold words for someone who gives up so easily."

                Rydia scoffed, twisting to face him. "Easily? Wasn't it you who told me the end of a conversation was when one person walked away?"

                He gave her a flat appraisal. "And you always do as you're told, don't you."

                "I don't always. I could—well, I—"

                He raised a brow skeptically. "Break the rules?"

                "Bend them," she said, offended. "But has it ever crossed your mind that I might just find you uninteresting and eventually stop asking?"

                He squared off against her. "Hasn't happened yet, and I have no reason to imagine why it might any time soon."

                She narrowed her eyes, stymied by his rebuttal. "Besides, it's unfair," she replied. "I helped you break the rules in the Sealed Cave, if you remember."

                He nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "That's true, you did. I wish you would do it more often, actually," he said, glancing back at her shrewdly.

                "You might not care what impression you leave, given that you probably won't be seeing any of us after this is over; but I, for one, would like to keep my friends," she answered hotly.

                He shook his head in disbelief. "Keeping friends during a war," he mused. "Friends who helped destroy your very livelihood and home; whose quest has taken ten years of your life away, and on whom you now rely for your very survival."

                "Why do you always sway back and forth between being with us or against us?" she wondered. "If you dislike us so much, why don't you return to your _own_ people?"

                "Because Cecil is the only person with the means and the connections to do anything about Golbez. Haven't we been through this before? Besides, if my disagreements force him to abandon some of his less inspired ideas, all the better."

                "All that your disagreements have done so far is split our group apart and send us on a merry chase," she volleyed.

                "I would rather be of service to the world's last ditch effort at defending itself, than spending my final days meditating in a library. At a time like this, I'm all for dividing resources."

                "Sometimes you say too much," Rydia said, annoyed.

                "And you, too little," he countered.

                "You want me to disagree with Cecil about going to the moon?" she asked.

                He looked at her, pretending to be surprised by her conclusion. "Rosa had a point. Dramatic, granted, but true."

                "What exactly do you expect me to do?" she huffed.

                "You don't always have to agree with him, and if you weren't so afraid of hurting feelings, you might have spoken up about Kain much sooner."

                "I am not afraid of—" she sputtered. "There was never a good—"

                "Time?" he interrupted.

                She exhaled sharply, quickly becoming more annoyed with him.

                "How do you plan to rebuild what's left of your home with such lackluster confidence?" he inquired.

                "It amazes me that you can lead your _own_ people with such arrogance," she replied, stiffening.

                He ignored her statement, replying with a biting remark of his own. "When this ends, if it ends," he said. "I can see Mist's future plainly. 'I could have retained the dignity of the summoners, but Baron had other ideas, and it sounded alright to me'."

                "That's a stretch," she answered angrily.

                "You owed Cecil a debt when you were seven," he pointed out. "You have to think ahead, and for yourself now. I think you go along with half of Cecil's plans because you're comfortable."

                Rydia frowned. "What else am I supposed to do?"

                "Redeploy yourself," he answered. "What if he's the only person really meant to go to the moon? Rosa raised an interesting point—that going to the moon might not solve anything. Astrid and her fleet are gathering everyone that's left in the world. What if we could be doing something more useful here with this 'fleet'?"

                Rydia rolled her eyes. "In Mysidia you were talking about how important it was to have a white mage with us, and now you're talking of not going to the moon at all."

                "That was before I knew such a fleet existed. Now that I know there are options, my priorities have shifted," he casually replied.

                "You're perfectly welcome to stay here, but I'm still going to the moon if that's where Cecil and Rosa are going."

                He set his lips in a straight line. "Predictable."

                "Why are you trying so hard to persuade _me_ to stay behind with you?"

                "You have the Eidolons," he answered. "And enough black magic in your tiny finger to level a kingdom."

                "My skills could be invaluable on the moon, too," she objected.

                "Could be," he repeated. "But none of us knows what's up there. We _know_ what's down here."

                "This is just your excuse of not having to return to Mysidia," Rydia replied airily. "We're going to the moon—all of us, whether or not I have to ask an Eidolon to restrain you and carry you along."

                He grinned at that. "Executive decision?"

                "Yes," she answered flatly, and stood up to find someone less irritating to keep her company.

 

...........................

 

                Mid was sitting in the belly of the ship, poring over charts on a table when Rydia climbed below deck. His hands were cradling his face, pushing back his greasy brown hair.

                "Are you alright?" Rydia asked, taking a seat across from him.

                He looked up at her briefly, and then stared hopelessly back at his charts.

                Rydia's eyes followed his, tracing dotted lines that marked trails across continents like ants. "We must be getting close to Fabul by now," Rydia said, trying to coax him into conversation again.

                Mid sighed, staring at the cabin window. "I'm an engineer, not a teacher!" he whined.

                "Astrid wouldn't have sent you along if she didn't have confidence in you," Rydia tried to assure him, though her confidence in herself was a little shaken after the conversation she'd just had. She put on a smile for the engineer, hoping to cheer him up. "Besides, you helped build the ship—who better to teach the Fabulians how to pilot it?"

                Mid stared at her incredulously. "You have a point there, but I've no skills with people! Bolts and screws, and propellers are my language!"

                Rydia was at a loss there, but she tried her best. "Then pretend the people are the very same," she suggested. "Someone has to get them ready."

                "Can I ask you something, miss?" Mid asked hesitantly.

                "Of course," Rydia replied.

                "Does it scare you—the idea of going to the moon?"

                Rydia fidgeted in her seat. "It's—" she paused, finding that she had never confronted this question on her own. "It's a frightening thought, but a little exciting. No one's ever gone to the moon before," she admitted.

                "I hope whatever you find there can be of help to us. I've never gone up against a force as superior as Babil's."

                "I hope so too," Rydia agreed, and then looked back at the charts. "This is where we are?" she asked, pointing to a portion of coast along Damcyan's eastern boundary.

                "Aye, that's where we are," Mid confirmed. "We've half a day's flight yet to go."

                Rydia sighed. "Then maybe you can teach me something about charting on the way."

                Mid brightened a little. "That, I can do."

 

0-0-0-0-0

 

 

                The airship finally entered the borders of Fabul, and Cecil landed them across from the city and the channel that surrounded it. They disembarked into chilly air. It felt like late autumn, and Rydia shivered, rubbing her arms on their walk to the city.

                They were allowed access to the keep, and as they crossed the castle's bailey, Rydia smelled the scent of spices and herbs overpowered by something sulfuric. The castle was different than their last visit, when they had come to tell Meiling of her husband's "death". Now it was bustling with activity—women and children carrying bundles of cloth and leather, while the older men were pouring a strange black powder into large cylinders.

                " So this if Fabul?" Edge asked, looking around.

                "Yes—oh, but don't you already know everything about it, and you're just asking me for the sake of annoyance?" Rydia asked heatedly.

                "Are you still bitter about Mysidia?" he asked.

                "Yes, I’m still bitter!" she retorted, increasing her pace and leaving him behind.

                They were soon joined by young men, boys really, wearing leather armor and wielding claws; and were directed through the milling crowds to the throne room itself. The scene inside the throne room was hectic, not unlike the halls leading to it. There were more young men bearing arms amidst women who were measuring and trimming leather for armor.

                The king was overseeing their efforts, leaning heavily on a crutch.

                He looked up expectantly when they entered, and Cecil bowed to the older man out of deference.

                “This is unexpected,” the king said, looking at each of them. “Are you here on behalf of Astrid and Baron’s engineers?”

                “We have an airship ready for your use," Cecil explained. "And this is Mid who will teach you how to pilot it.”

                "Who'm I to train, then?" Mid asked, peeking out around Cecil.

                The king nodded to Mid and gestured at the citizens at work around him. “I'm afraid we have no one with experience in mechanicals. You'll have your work cut out for you, but thank you for coming to us."

                Mid gazed at the boys and women around him, overwhelmed.

                "These are all the forces we have left,” the king explained. “I’m not sure what good we’ll be against Golbez, but at least we have another airship to fight fire with fire. We have been re-purposing our fireworks into weapons in the meantime. We always used these for celebration, now they shall be used for war."

                The king then gestured several older boys over to him, and pointed to Mid. "This man will teach you how to fly Baron's airship. Listen well and take notes if you must. Our kingdom depends on you."

                The young men blanched, and Rydia noticed they were her age or younger, as they followed an equally nervous engineer out of the throne room to the ship waiting in the field.

                Once they had left, the king returned his attention to Cecil. "There was once a time when you stayed to help us fight against Baron. I know that is no longer a possibility, but often I find myself wishing that Yang were here to lead our forces.”

                Rydia chewed on her lip, realizing they hadn't been able to inform Yang's wife that he was alive, and wondering if it was her place to speak up about such news.

                “Your majesty, there is something else,” Cecil mentioned, as if reading her thoughts.

                “Do you know how much time we have or where we are marshalling?" the king asked. "Have other plans been made?”

                “No, Yang—“

                The king squinted at Cecil, waiting for him to continue. “What about  him?”

                “He isn’t dead as we thought," Cecil continued. "He is alive in the underworld in the keeping of the Sylphs.”

                The king’s eyes widened. “He lives? Can he be reached?”

                “I’m afraid the last we saw him, he was unconscious,” Rosa revealed. “They were tending to his wounds.”

                “Have you told his wife?” the king asked, casting his gaze around the throne room.

                “We have not seen the lady Meiling,” Rosa answered, disappointedly.

                “She must be told at once,” the king insisted, flagging down a messenger and giving the boy instructions before sending him off again. “This is crucial news,” the king said excitedly. “If he lives, then there is hope. This will rally my remaining forces as few other things would. You will give strength back to my kingdom, knowing that he lives.”

                It wasn’t long before Meiling burst into the throne room, accompanied by the messenger, her eyes frantically searching for Cecil. When she saw them, she strode right up to them. In her hand was an iron pan.

                Meiling was covered in soot, her hair tied up in haphazard bundles with long strands falling on either side of her face. She looked as if she had just fought a war with a chimney. For a moment, Rydia was afraid she might attack them with the pan in her hand, but Meiling kept it at her side, her knuckles white beneath the gray stains.

                "They have something to tell you," the king informed her gently.

                Meiling locked eyes with Cecil like some wild thing. "What is it? Is it my husband?"

                "Meiling, we found him," Cecil explained slowly and carefully, like one does to a tantrum prone child.

                She nodded slowly. "Found him," she repeated. "Dead or alive?"

                "Alive."

                Meiling's expression morphed as she stared at Cecil, and then at the others for confirmation. "Alive? Where?"

                "In the underworld," Rosa told her.

                Meiling began to pace, but Rosa reached out for her arm. "Meiling, he was in bad shape when we found him. He's presently being cared for by the Sylphs."

                Meiling took in a deep breath, followed by another. "I can't believe this. All of this grief I've carried, only to—" Meiling trailed off, but turned to face Cecil again, and thrust the iron pan into his  baffled hand.

                "You find my husband," she threatened, still holding onto the pan's handle and shaking it vigorously. "You find him, and you give him _hell_ for me!" she said before storming out of the throne room.

                Cecil stared after her awkwardly, still holding the pan. "Does she really mean for me to keep this?" he asked.

                The king shrugged. "She has bested many foes with that pan. If she's given it to you, then she intends for you to use it."

                "On what?" Cecil asked, confused.

                The king shook his head. "My guess would be on her husband."

                Rydia and Rosa looked at the king aghast.

                "For the wife of a monk, she sure has a sense of humor," Edge muttered under his breath. Rydia glanced at him, almost forgetting he was there and wishing he wasn't.

                The king cleared his throat. “Is there any news from Mysidia?" he asked, repeating his earlier question. "Is there word on when and where we are to marshal?”

                “When the twin moon is aligned with the tower and at its fullest phase, we will have run out of time.”

                “And the rest of you? Where do you go from here?”

                “To Mysidia, I hope," Cecil answered, crossing his arms. "The elder is seeking a means to send us to the twin moon to find someone or something that can undo Golbez’s plans from there.”

                “So you’re going to the moon, and we’re flying to Babil.”

                “Yes, events are shaping up that way.”

                “Very well. We will prepare and continue as planned, before the next full phase of the moon,” the king said, surveying his workers.

                “Excellent. And we will wait for Astrid,” Cecil replied.

                "You are welcome to stay here," the king assured them. "The inn is less staffed than normal, but still welcomes guests."

                "Thank you, your majesty. Your hospitality, as always, precedes you," Rosa accepted graciously, bowing to the older man.

                The king smiled at them, his beard lifting at the corners of his mouth, as he nodded them out of the room. Cecil led them out of the throne room and through the castle's bailey to the outbuildings and the inn.

                The room was crowded and the beds had been pushed close together, while the other half of the inn had been filled with bolts of fabric.

                "Looks like they're using this place for storage now," Rosa remarked, setting down her pack on a bed.

                Edge walked up to one of the bolts, touching the fabric. "I recognize this cloth," he said absently, perusing through the other bolts.

                Rydia eyed him shrewdly. "That's odd," she remarked, causing him to look up at her.

                "What's odd?" he repeated. "We trade with Fabul. These dyes are from Eblan," he said, outdoing her own snide remark with solid facts. Rydia crossed her arms, having hoped his reason would have been something more vain, and in keeping with his personality.

                "Do you think it will be long before Astrid comes to get us?" Rosa asked.

                Cecil made a face, doing calculations in his head. "Mysidia is closer to Baron than Fabul, so she must have arrived long before we did, and already started with her repairs. If anything, she's six hours ahead of us, perhaps more."

                "Right then," Rosa announced. "I'm getting sleep wherever and whenever I can. If she works through the night, we may see her by morning."

                "Going to sleep already?" Edge asked, surprised.

                Rosa tilted her head at the ninja, a biting smile on her lips. "If it weren't for a chain of unpleasant circumstances beginning last night, I might have slept. As it is, I haven't slept in days, and I'm holding you responsible."

                Cecil glanced archly at the prince with that remark, wondering what Rosa had meant by it. Edge in the meanwhile raised both of his hands. "Not what you think," he said in his defense.

 

                Rydia left the inn before another argument could begin. There had been more than enough of those in recent weeks, and she had something on her mind that had plagued her since Mysidia. She chose to leave the castle behind, ignoring everyone else for a while. She had an overdue appointment with a friend. She walked to the edge of the channel that surrounded Fabul, past the trees with bare branches, and closed her eyes. She needed to balance herself, and clear her mind before she began a summoning.

                The magic of the crystals was different again. Every time and every place she'd cast, she had sensed the minutiae of their response to her. It was as if the crystals resonated more strongly below ground than above; as if their power was more contained in the smaller space. During her battle with Odin, she had felt more resistance, and more _anger_ reflected from her spell, than what she had intended. And now, beginning a different incantation that drew one life from another realm, the crystals felt quiet, expectant.

                She spoke the summoner's language, old and familiar, until a name rose to her tongue—the true name of the one she wished to see.

                Mist spread from the water, flowing to the shore, and coated Rydia's skin with dew.

                "You summoned me, my dear?" Mist's low and melodious voice asked from within her veil of vapor.

                "I did," Rydia answered, not having to see the dragon, to know where she was.

                "What do you require of me?"

                "Your opinion," Rydia told her, folding her arms and bunching her robes more tightly around herself.

                The dragon swept past her, stirring the mist until it coalesced into the garments of Mist's human guise. "My opinion," the woman with silver hair mused. "What about?"

                Rydia tried to form her question, but she was still torn over which to ask. "We're going to the moon," Rydia explained quietly. "Or at least, Cecil has been called there."

                "And you're wondering whether you should go with him or remain here?"

                Rydia looked at Mist, not having to speak.

                Mist hummed and stepped closer, brushing Rydia's hair away from her face. "My dear, you have never been conflicted about your loyalty before. What has changed?"

                Rydia frowned, trying to fight down her doubts.

                "Two of my companions have talked of staying here on the earth. There is a fleet of airships that are being prepared to battle the tower, and I've been asked to stay as well—that my magic could be of use here."

                "You fear the moon, and what awaits you there?"

                "Is it worth it? Do we know it holds any benefit for us?" Rydia asked desperately.

                Mist inclined her head, looking up at the moon that glimmered red in the night sky. She closed her eyes, her lips parted slightly as though she were taking in a scent.

                When she opened her eyes again, she gazed at Rydia with eyes that glistened with starlight.

                "You must go," Mist declared with absolute certainty.

                "Mist?" Rydia asked, looking perplexedly at her companion. "What happened just now?"

                "A voice," Mist answered drunkenly. "A voice I have not heard in many years."

                "What did it say?" Rydia asked.

                "It was a voice of welcome—it called me sister."

                Rydia crossed her arms, staring at the moon. "But what does it want?"

                Mist's mouth curved into a smile, eerily dragon-like on the human face. "There is one like us on the moon," she explained. "Rydia, you must go there and seek him. He is asking for you as well."

                "For me?" Rydia was stunned. "Someone on the moon recognizes _me?"_

                "You are the last summoner. You have bested the Lord of All Waters, and now the greatest of us wishes to test your skill."

                Rydia took a step back, shaking her head. "You're not speaking of—he's on the _moon_?" she asked, flabbergasted.

                Mist tilted her head at her. "This surprises you? That the Hallowed Father should be anywhere else?"

                Rydia's heart raced in her chest. "Bahamut," she said slowly; disbelievingly. "He's there?"

                Mist took a few steps forward to account for Rydia's steps back and put her hands on Rydia's shoulders. "You were called as well, my dear. Let the world toil as it must—you were called to a higher purpose. You must speak to the Hallowed Father. He is older than any of us, and he knows secrets about the world, and of the crystals, that may save those you hold dear."

                Rydia was shocked numb. "Will I still be able to summon you?" Rydia asked, fearing the distance from the moon to the Feymarch.

                "Distance means nothing," Mist assured her, as though reading her thoughts. "Wherever you are, I will be at your side."

                "Thank you," Rydia breathed in relief.

                "Was there anything else?" Mist asked.

                Rydia sighed. "Do you think that I never think for myself?" she asked timidly.

                Mist narrowed her eyes, studying her. "You most certainly think for yourself," she replied, ruffling her hair. "A girl who tries to run away from the Feymarch, ignores an order from the queen, and finds herself in the Void for a year all to rescue me? That is a girl who is perfectly capable of thinking for herself. Not that all of those decisions were _wise_ , but they were definitely your own."

                Rydia smiled sheepishly, her cheeks reddening.

                "Put all those other thoughts aside," Mist ordered. "You are grown now, and you have a war to fight. Follow the path to the moon, wherever that takes you, and learn what you can from it."

                "Thank you, Mist," Rydia said with relief.

                "Rydia, ask for me whenever you need me," the Eidolon told her.

                Rydia bowed her head appreciatively, and bade Mist return to the Feymarch. The vapor fled, and all that was left were the sounds of night and the chilly autumn air.

 

               

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

 

                Astrid arrived by mid-morning, setting the Falcon down amidst a maelstrom of dust and dry grass.

                Cecil was not keen on long goodbyes, and kept their parting with important persons brief and to the point. By the time they had left the city to join Astrid on the deck of the airship, she was leaning against the railing, gracelessly eating a fruit.

                "I'll admit, that was quick," Cecil called up to her.

                She smiled and did a brief bow. "I told you," she replied. "And I have another announcement to make," she shouted down to them.

                They all stared at her intently, wondering what she had in store for them.

                "Since I'm presently in command of this vessel, _and_ since it'll be days at least until the moon's orbit is in line for a full moon, there's something I need to do."

                Cecil frowned, uncertainly. "How do you know this, Astrid? We could have less time than you think."

                "The elder informed me while I was making repairs," she corrected him.

                "He's figured out the charts so quickly?" Cecil asked, as he climbed aboard.

                "There's the observatory in Agart, you know," Astrid explained, out-stepping him to the ship's controls. "Which, despite having the mountain beside it erupt so violently so often, has managed to stay in operation."

                "But how did Agart get its information to Mysidia so quickly? It's been less than two days since we left."

                "Pigeons," Astrid replied matter-of-factly. "Obviously."

                Cecil stood poised by the ship's wheel, hoping to have an opening to step in and take over, but Astrid didn't let him. "What exactly is this thing you need to do?" he asked.

                She thrust the levers by the wheel away from her, engaging the primary motors. "You're coming with me to the underworld," she announced, pulling another set of levers toward her, as the propellers began to turn and rise the ship up from the dusty plain. "There's an old fool whose help I need. And you're going to help me get him."

                Rydia was almost too stunned to hear this—to respond. Everyone else on the ship turned to stare at her. Cecil, on the other hand, was outraged.

                "The underworld, Astrid? Really?"

                "You want ships? I need another engineer," she insisted. "And perhaps we can recruit the dwarves while we're there."

                "You're mad," Cecil declared.

                "Damn right, I am," she countered. "Besides, it's plain rude for a father not to tell his daughter he's dead and then not dead."

                Rosa gave her a scalding look which Astrid ignored.

                "The thing is, there's a storm brewing over Damcyan and heading east," Astrid informed them. "We'll hit it flying over the continent. So I'm taking us by sea over the archipelago."

                "It takes a day and a half at least to reach Agart, and you want to spend more time flying across the underworld looking for your father?" Cecil said, dismayed.

                Astrid stared at Cecil for a protracted moment. "I can see why you’re so theatrical," she said, nodding to Rosa. "How else does anything get done?"

                "I am not theatrical," Rosa protested, crossing her arms.

                "I've always wondered why only the men get to go off and carry out plans," Astrid carried on, ignoring her again. "Seems to me that they spend all their time running to stand still. I prefer not to lose momentum."

                “Astrid, you realize that you are hijacking our efforts to save the world, in favor of your own personal agenda.”

                “The world can wait. I can’t.”

                “I like her,” Edge announced, staring at the engineer's daughter with admiration.

                Rydia walked past him, exasperated. “Who _don’t_ you like?” she asked.

                “Kain,” he answered immediately.

                Rydia walked away, unable to comment on that remark.

                Before they had risen high into the air, a heavy metallic clunk hit the deck of the ship. They all turned to see what it was.

                There, on the planking, was a coal black iron pan with a note attached to the handle.

                Rosa leaned down to pick it up, and unwrapped the note from the pan. She laughed, and then shook her head. "I thought you left this  behind?" she asked Cecil with a quick look. "Meiling wants to remind us that she meant every word she said."

                "I know Yang is thick skulled, but this seems a little extreme," Rydia objected, taking the pan from Rosa's hand and testing the weight of it. It was solid, dangerous.

                Cecil was staring at it, as if it was diseased. He sighed, annoyed. "To the underworld it is," he relented, gazing at Astrid.

                Astrid smiled wolfishly. "Good," she said. "Get comfortable."

 

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

 

                With all the time they had been flying in recent days, Rydia's attention had returned to her studying. There was a change of pilots several hours after leaving Fabul—Astrid claiming fatigue—and Cecil had taken over for her.

                "Rydia—" Astrid said, as she was walking by, spying the book she was reading.

                Rydia glanced up, uncomprehending.

                "What _is_ that?" she asked, plucking the rat's tail out of the tome where Rydia had used it as a bookmark.

                Rydia stared at the disgusting thing, and then looked at Astrid. "It's a tail," she said simply, just as Edge done when she'd asked him.

                Astrid seemed more enthused about the tail, however, than Rydia imagined anyone should be.

                "Do you know what this _is?_ " Astrid repeated, her tone becoming more excited.

                "A tail," Rydia repeated, not sure why this was important.

                "My father has been searching for something like this for ages," Astrid twittered, twirling it in her fingers. "He's been trying to get his hands on a certain metal for months, but the men who have it will only trade for a bloody ridiculous tail; and not just any tail—no, an enchanted one."

                Rydia glanced at the tail, at the wiry hairs sticking out from the dry skin. "There's nothing particularly special about—"

                "Look at the quality of the hair," Astrid talked over her. "Look at the banding, at the length and width. This came from a rat from a different part of the world. One, no doubt, enhanced by magic. They're bound to trade for this.

                "What metal is this, Astrid?" Rydia asked, finally curious.

                "Adamant ore," Astrid replied absentmindedly.

                The name made Rydia pause. "Adamant?" she repeated, eyeing Astrid sideways. "You know where it is?"

                "Of course I do," Astrid answered, still holding the tail. "It's on an island near Silvera, where Mythril is mined."

                They stared at each other for a moment.

                "Why do _you_ know about it?" Astrid asked, narrowing her eyes.

                "There was a smith in the underworld who was looking for the same ore, and said he would render a service for Cecil if we ever found and brought him some."

                "A smith," Astrid repeated, staring Rydia down. "What if, say, _we_ come across the ore first. Does that mean that I—I mean, we—get to keep what we trade for?"

                "He's been searching for this ore most of his life," Rydia informed Astrid. "It wouldn't be fair to find it and then not give him any."

                Astrid groaned. "What if we bartered him for part of it."

                Rydia wrinkled her brow. "What do you even need it for?" she asked.

                Astrid leaned away, evasively. "Things," she answered.

                Rydia made a face. "I have a feeling that you and Edge would get along fantastically," she muttered.

                Astrid grinned at her. "I don't know about that," Astrid gallantly replied. "I think he's already got his sights set on someone."

                Rydia looked at Astrid curiously. "What—who?" she asked, wanting to know what that meant. Did Edge have someone at home he was pining after? Did he—no.

                Astrid had already walked to the cabin door, as an unsettling thought entered Rydia's mind. "Astrid, what did you mean by that!" she demanded.

                "Oh, just open your eyes, girl, and you'll figure it out," Astrid called back over her shoulder before taking the cabin stairs two at a time.

                If it hadn't been for the fact that the other woman hadn't slept in several days, Rydia would have gone after her. In the meanwhile, she was left with Cecil above deck, flying over the archipelago southward toward Silvera and all that lay beyond.              

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Hours faded away, and Rydia had grown tired of reading, or of making shapes out of the clouds. Astrid had emerged from her bunk with wayward hair, but insisted she was rested enough to take back the helm. Cecil explained the charts to her, and she nodded, yawning.

                "Ah, good!" Astrid exclaimed. "We haven't passed Silvera after all."

                Rydia crawled up and walked to the helm, where Astrid was telling Cecil something. When she got closer, Rydia realized that Astrid had tied the rat's tail around her wrist like a bracelet. She scowled, disgusted by the makeshift adornment.

                "Silvera," Cecil said with a frown.

                "Won't take long, a few minutes at most," Astrid assured him.

                Cecil sighed, unable to dissuade her.

                Rydia looked at him sympathetically, a look he returned.

                Astrid flew them along the islands below until they reached sight of Silvera, a place Rydia also had never seen. Astrid changed the direction of the ship heading east, and then returned the ship's controls to Cecil.

                Astrid gave Cecil strict instructions about keeping the ship steady and level, and then walked to the center of the ship where she picked up a bundle of rope and slung it over her shoulder. Rosa and Edge had returned to the ship's deck to see what was going on, while Astrid tied a knot to the side railing. Edge checked it for her, out of concern for her self-preservation, and declared it sound.

                "Who's coming with me?" Astrid asked.

                "I'll go," Edge volunteered, not really sure what he was volunteering for.

                "What exactly are you doing, again?" Cecil asked for clarification.

                "Adamant," Astrid called back to him. "May as well get it while we're here."

                "The ore?" Cecil asked, in disbelief.

                "It's not some imaginary legend," Astrid assured him. "It's quite real, and quite valuable."

                "How do you expect to trade for it?" Cecil inquired.

                Astrid shook her wrist with the rat's tail on it. "With this," she said.

                "How much time do you need?" Cecil asked again.

                Astrid made a face while she thought it over. "Not long. Few minutes—tops."

                She took the rope and shimmied down it, hooking her foot around the rope while she slid. Edge followed her, but Rydia stayed behind, watching them land on the rocky shore of the island below.

                There was a shelf of jagged rock and a mine shaft had been carved into it. Rydia and Rosa watched with consternation at the strange trading venture about to take place.  

                "This journey is becoming stranger," Rosa admitted, peering down.

                "Yes it is," Rydia agreed.

 

..................

 

                More than a few minutes went by before Astrid and Edge returned from the mine carrying a large bundle of rock between them. They tied it to the end of the rope, climbed up, and then pulled the ore aboard with an underwhelming thump.

                All of them except for Cecil crowded around it, almost as if they expected it to do something.   

                "So this is the adamant?" Rosa asked.

                "Yup." Astrid and Edge answered simultaneously.

                "Exciting," Rydia remarked.

                "Right," Astrid agreed, walking back to the ship's controls to relieve Cecil.

                Rosa sighed and returned to the cabin, and Edge started to walk after her, thoroughly bored.

                "How was your adventure with Astrid?" Rydia asked him, a little more pointedly than intended.

                He glanced back at her.  "I've changed my mind," he stated. "I don't like her as much as I thought," he said, looking a little pink in the ears. Rydia couldn't figure out if it was because of anger or embarrassment.

                She let him escape to the cabin, feeling oddly victorious. She paused, furious with herself for having felt...jealous? She kicked the lump of adamant ore and bit back a cry as she stubbed her toe.

                She glanced back at Cecil and Astrid, hoping they hadn't seen, and then stalked off to her books. She had more reading to do.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                They flew for the rest of the day and into the night, and Rydia had retired to the ship's cabin until the air warmed, and it became too unbearable to sleep. She groaned in her cot, knowing precisely where they were without having to see the magma plains.

                She climbed to the ship's deck only to be bombarded by the underworld's heat. She swayed a little as Astrid adjusted the ship's controls to clear the narrow entryway they had drilled out of rock to escape not three days earlier.

                "Damn, it's hot," Astrid cursed, unable to keep the ship in a straight line because of how the rock debris had fallen.

                "Be careful!" Cecil reminded her, looking like he wanted to tear the ship's wheel from her hands.

                Astrid glared at him fiercely. "Under no circumstances are you allowed to touch this wheel, Cecil," she threatened. "Not until I become incapacitated. Or dead."

                She adjusted the ship's controls again and the propellers alternated between turning quickly, and slowly, jolting the ship as it fell and then steadied its way down the steep and irregular juts of fallen rock.

                "It's a miracle you escaped the underworld with all this rock carnage," Astrid remarked, straining at the wheel with sweat at her brow. "And damn it's bright. How the hell did any of you survive this long?"

                Everyone was on the deck, standing around the helm.

                "So what's first?" Edge asked.

                "You have that frying pan that you can use to—cook something?" Astrid mentioned, angling the ship along the land until she found a good place to remain stationary.

                "Meiling was very insistent that we see to Yang," Rosa said. "And if you planned on having your father with you, I would wait until the last possible minute to invite him aboard. I know how arguments with you go."

                Astrid screwed her face into a scowl. "I know what you mean..."

                "How did we end up on this quest in the first place?" Cecil muttered, crossing his arms.

                “One does not ignore the command of a monk, let alone a monk’s wife. Though the latter seems oxymoronic," Edge intoned.

                "How far away are the Sylphs and their cave?" Astrid asked.

                "Farther away than the dwarfs," Cecil answered.

                "Are there charts?" Astrid asked, looking at him purposefully.

                This made everyone quiet, until they noticed Rydia standing there.

                Edge narrowed his eyes at her. "Weren't you given charts in the Feymach?"

                Rydia stiffened as everyone stared at her. "I was," she forced out.

                "Well?" Astrid asked. "Where are they?"

                Rydia groaned, marching back to the ship's cabin to dig through her satchel. She returned a few minutes later with a roll of maps scrawled on animal skin.

                She gave them to Cecil, and the five of them studied the maps intently.

                "So where is it?" Astrid asked with a frustrated tone.

                Cecil ran a hand through his hair. "Well we—"

                "Don't tell me you found it by accident and now you don't know how to return there," Astrid huffed, rolling her eyes.

                Cecil did not look amused.

                "Why do I ask these questions, when I already know the answer?" Astrid asked disparagingly.

                "It must be this mark on the map," Cecil said, pointing to a symbol on the far "west" corner of the map.

                "Right," Astrid said, tracing her finger over the map between their current position and their destination.

                "Can you do it?" Rosa asked.

                "With me at the helm?" she asked. "I can navigate twice as well as any of you. So long as you don't ask my father."

                She turned the nose of the ship around and flew them west. Rydia stared at the land beneath them, at the topography that was so similar, it never seemed to change.

                They flew for hours, Astrid keeping them steady and level. A light rose to the right of the ship, and soon afterwards, the tower of Babil came into view. It was pulsating prismatically, and unrepentantly bright.

                Rydia stared as they passed by, seeing it up close for the first time since they'd climbed it. It was a formidable sight, and vibrating with magic; sending out waves of energy to the point of raising the hair on her arms. She shuddered, understanding now how it could be so powerful to pull the twin moon out of its orbit.

                Just as soon as they'd approached it, they were leaving it behind.

                The light faded in the distance like a white sunset, and they turned their sights back to the west and the emergence of higher ridges and wider plateaus. The steam that Rydia remembered making their first voyage here so perilous had returned, the air thickening like soup.

                "This is right about the time we almost died," Edge announced sarcastically, leaning against the railing and checking for imminent peril.

                "I'm taking us lower," Astrid called back, adjusting the ship's altitude.

                They all took turns with the map, pointing and shouting out directions to Astrid, who spent most of the duration swearing out curses at their lousy eyes.

                "There!" Rosa cried out, practically hanging out of the ship.

                Astrid flew in the direction Rosa had pointed, and as she lowered the ship closer to the ground, the rocks _did_ seem familiar, and a dark mouth to a cave _did_ burrow into their surface. Astrid circled around until she found a suitable place to land, and once the ship was securely on the ground, the five of them disembarked.

                "Let's do this," Astrid declared, striding to the cave with great singleness of purpose.     

                The rest of them had to run to catch up to her, Rosa most frantic of them all.

                "Astrid, one does not simply dive into the underworld headfirst," Rosa scolded.

                Astrid made a disgusted sound in her throat.

                "You have no weapons!" Cecil agreed, taking the lead back from the intrepid pilot.

                Astrid glanced at him sharply, but Rydia, now approaching from behind, had to agree. The fiends of the underworld were brutal and unforgiving, and Astrid was not a warrior—that she knew of.

                Astrid tugged a strange angled instrument from the belt at her waist, waving it in front of her.

                "I have _this,"_ she announced defiantly.

                "It's a measure," Cecil pointed out.

                "And _these,"_ Astrid continued with gusto, prying more tools from her belt.

                "Wrenches?" Edge remarked, less than impressed.

                "Stop, stop, stop," Rosa instructed, getting to the front of the group and halting them all with her outstretched hands.

                Rosa began to chant, and their feet were soon lifted off the ground by the float spell that she'd invoked.

                Astrid stared at her feet as if they'd betrayed her. "When did you learn to do this?" she asked in disbelief.

                Rosa smiled proudly. "Sometime after you fancied yourself an engineer."

                "Is this really necessary?" Astrid wondered aloud.

                "Do me a favor, Astrid, and make sure you stay close to me," Cecil instructed her, nodding to the mouth of the cave.

                "You don't think I can handle myself, do you?" Astrid insisted, following the paladin.

                "No," everyone answered in unison.

               

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                "Toads!" Astrid whined shortly after they had ventured into the cave. "Disgusting!"

                Rydia smiled, stepping over the crisped husks of the slimy amphibians that had been impeding their journey a few minutes earlier. Somehow, the fiends of this cave weren't as challenging as Rydia remembered. But for Astrid, who had never been to the underworld—everything was new and terrible.

                The four of them had fallen into their old routine—with strategies that were efficient and well known, working around Astrid like a well-oiled machine. Astrid watched them intently, staying at a distance during attacks from the cavern denizens, and staying close while they were moving. 

                "This is amazing," she commented after more than an hour navigating the strange and circuitous paths. "I finally get to _see_ what Rosa is always talking about."

                Cecil looked at Rosa, who shrugged innocently.

                "What have you been talking about?" Cecil asked.

                "About how strong you are, how quick you are to take the lead," Astrid answered, saving Rosa her own explanation. "And magic!" she gushed, bumping shoulders with Rydia. "I've never met a mage who could cast faster than you."

                Rydia blushed and smiled. "I'm sure there have been better," she answered, embarrassed.

                "Not many," Edge weighed in, giving Rydia a significant once-over.

                Rydia frowned, wondering at this bit of praise. By the look on Astrid's face, the other woman had been thinking the same thing. Astrid tilted her head, suspicious, and the ninja slunk farther back from the group, keeping to himself.

                Astrid hummed, pleased about something, and Rydia glanced at her. "What is it?"

                Astrid smiled at her. "Ask me later."

                Rydia frowned at her, too.

 

............

 

                They walked through more of the cave; past the strange vines with their silvery leaves and twined branches. Astrid was not short on new and colorful descriptions for everything they came across, but Rydia was preoccupied with the sense that they were being watched—or followed.

                "They're already watching us," Rydia pointed out when they had paused for a rest.

                "We did trespass on them the last time we were here," Edge reminded her.      

                "We must be getting close," Cecil said, and adjusted his gear again, while Rosa chanted yet another float spell to keep them safe from the perilous ground.

                The cave spanned downward and onward, but the peculiar house with its porch and stairway appeared soon enough.

                "What the hell is this place?" Astrid asked, staring at it. "It looks like a plain old house. Do magical beings really live in there? Why don't they live in, I don't know, an ancient tree? Or a giant vine? Why a house?"

                "Oh, Astrid," Rosa groaned, walking forward.

                The climbed the steps to the porch and approached the door.

                Rydia recalled what had happened the last time they'd opened it. They were assaulted by the Sylph's magic, shooed out of the house, and onto a portal that had whisked them away. Rosa preempted this outcome by casting a hasty shell spell on the five of them, and then nodded to Cecil who stood ready at the door.

                They drew close and waited, preparing themselves to invade.

                "Why don't you just knock?" Astrid asked curiously, rapping her knuckles against the wood without invitation.

                They stared at her in disbelief, and then took quick steps back when the door opened a moment later, and a small elfin-featured face poked out at them.

                "Yes?" the Sylph asked, her voice tremulous and thin like a leaf.

                At first, they were too stunned to speak.

                "Is there a man here in your keeping?" Rosa finally asked, peeking around Cecil.

                "Who is asking?" the Sylph replied, looking at them suspiciously.

                "We are his friends and companions," Rosa explained, keeping her voice calm and even.

                "You are armed warriors," the Sylph mused. "But there are more females than males in your group," she observed, rubbing her chin. "We have observed that the females of the human population are less aggressive, less likely to cause trouble. You may enter."

                The Sylph flitted away from the door on her tiny dragonfly wings, pointing to the side room where they had seen Yang resting before. "We have tended his wounds and repaired most of the damage he incurred. Sir Yang is a kind man, and we will look after him most faithfully."

                Other Sylphs in the room flitted behind furniture and hung onto molding or in corners, avoiding the humans almost completely. Rydia and the others were allowed to safely approach the bed. Who knew all it took was a knock on the door for the Sylphs to extend their hospitality?

                "He looks pale," Rosa observed, putting the back of her hand to Yang's forehead.

                "He looks mostly dead," Astrid remarked, tilting her head.

                "He is not!" Rydia insisted, looking at Cecil for help. "He's not, is he?"

                "Of course not," Cecil assured her. "But now there's the matter of what to do with this pan. Do we leave it here with him?"

                "Meiling told us to give him hell for her. I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that," Rosa admitted, staring at the pan.

                "Are we supposed to cook him breakfast?" Edge quipped. "Anyone have any rosemary or thyme?"

                Rydia glared at him, but admitted to herself that breakfast was preferable to giving their friend another concussion.

                "Oh, give me that," Astrid complained, swiping the pan from Cecil's hand.

                "Astrid!" Rosa gasped, as the woman bopped Yang on the head with it, eliciting a hollow thump.

                The Sylph who had let them in fluttered angrily in Astrid's face, as others flew down from the nooks and crannies they'd been hiding in to lodge protest.

                "What are you doing, you mindless brute?" The first Sylph demanded. She was frantic with worry, and hovered between the pan and the unconscious monk on the bed.

                "I was only doing what his wife had asked!" Astrid defended herself, as the pan was pried from her fingers by a small armada of Sylphs.

                "I had no idea that females could be so detestably brutal," one Sylph declared in a high-pitched voice. "Terrible, loathsome humans—both genders!"    

                Yang groaned suddenly on the bed, and everyone paused to look down at him. "Uhhhn…" he moaned, opening his eyes slowly. "Is it time for training already? Just let me sleep a little longer…" he muttered, closing his eyes again, only to open them a few moments later. "What’s this? _Cecil_?" he cried, trying to sit up in bed, and then retreated to his pillow with a wince. He rubbed his forehead with his hand.

                "Ay ya," he complained. "Has my wife been here?"

                "Yang!" Cecil exclaimed.

                "Thank goodness—you’re awake!" Rydia said, nearly hopping up and down with excitement.

                Yang chuckled, and looked around again. "Yes," he replied. "Though I would not even be alive had these kind Sylphs not rescued me," he explained, pointing to the tiny winged humanoids hovering around the bed.

                "Thanks to you, the cannons were destroyed," Cecil told him. "You saved the dwarves."

                Yang closed his eyes, relieved. "Thank goodness something came of that. When I woke, my body was broken and I was here. I had no idea if the dwarves had been spared their fate."

                "They are alive and well—for the moment anyway."

                "And now I can go with you again!" Yang insisted, trying to get out of bed.

                "You mustn’t go, not yet, you see! You still need care and rest!" the Sylphs demanded, forcing him back to bed by virtue of their greater numbers.

                The monk relented, and flung himself back against the pillows. "I cannot simply sleep the hours away while the fate of the world hangs in the balance!" he complained, very put-out.

                "The wounded have no place on the battlefield anyway," Edge retorted.

                "And who might you be?" Yang demanded, looking the prince up and down.

                "Edge, of Eblan—your superior replacement!" he boasted with a smile.

                "Eblan, you say? A ninja, then…I refuse to take second seat to an upstart from a kingdom that stole our martial arts and then claimed they were better at it. I must go as well," Yang said, trying to sit up again only to be pushed back down.

                “You are Sir Yang,” Astrid intervened before Edge could build up a full head of steam, shooing the Sylphs away from her face.

                “I am," Yang answered, turning his attention to her, squinting. "And who are you?”

                “Cid’s daughter. I've heard a lot about you.”

                “Cid—his daughter,” Yang said, prying back blankets again. “If he is still at work, I too must return to the battlefield.”

                “Yang, your wounds,” Rosa reminded him.

                “A grown man cannot fight, but a girl, and an un-tried warrior is allowed?” he argued.

                "You would be a hindrance to us in your current state," Edge retorted.

                "Your injuries—" Cecil pointed out.

                “Will heal with time,” Yang angrily interrupted the paladin.

                “We came here on behalf of your wife,” Cecil explained.

                “Meiling—what was she told?” Yang demanded, furrowing his brow.

                “We thought you were dead,” Rosa explained.

                “Dead?” he insisted, sweeping his legs out of the bed.

                “Yang, you must stay in bed!” the Sylph in charge was adamant.

                “I can’t be laying about when the world needs saving,” he repeated.

                “Meiling knows you’re alive,” Rosa hastily added.

                “You’ve seen her? You’ve seen my wife?" he asked. "What has happened, have the crystals been collected by Golbez, or do we at least have something to barter with?”

                “The crystals are all in his possession,” Cecil answered. “We’ve lost our bargaining power and any advantage we might have had.”

                “What, then? Are you still coming at him from all sides?” Yang tried to determine.

                “We were _going_ to travel to the twin moon, until Astrid decided to tote us on an errand of hers which has turned out to be anything but short.”

                “How did you know I was here?” Yang asked, baffled.

                “Well, we found you here by accident once before,” Cecil explained, hoping the Sylphs did not remember this encounter.

                "You did?" Yang asked.

                "Foul humans," the Sylphs replied, fluttering their wings angrily.

                "You were unconscious," Rosa told him. "And we did not have time to determine if you could be moved. We weren't allowed to stay long."

                "I see," Yang answered. "I'm conscious now, and I would like to return to the fight."

                "No, no, that will not do at all!" the lead Sylph cried. "Let us go in your stead!

                Yang glanced at the Sylph curiously. "What do you mean by that?"

                The Sylph nodded to Rydia. "This young one is a summoner—that much is plain to see. So let her call on us to fight whenever there’s a need! Then you will have no need to fight, and can rest right here."

                The Sylphs banded together in a group, whispering to each other, and then turned to Rydia.

                "Please call us whenever you need us," they beseeched her. "We do this as a favor to Yang, though we are peaceful by nature and would normally not intercede in mortal matters."

                They glowed brightly with magic, the entire room shimmering green, as Rydia was bestowed their name. Their magic felt soft, like new spring grass, and Rydia smiled as she accepted it.

                "Thank you," she told them.

                "We would rather help than see Sir Yang harmed again," they told her, arranging themselves protectively around the monk.

                Yang sighed. "Then I will continue to rest," he yielded. "My pardons. It seems there is little I can do to help you now, weakened like this. But for curiosity's sake, what is your plan?"

                "Astrid has finished the rest of Cid's airship fleet in Baron and we are gathering whatever forces each kingdom can spare. The fleet will mount an attack against the tower, while we search for a means to disarm the tower's defenses from the moon," Cecil told him.

                " Fascinating," Yang mumbled. "How exactly are you going to reach the moon?"

                "The elder of Mysidia is raising an ancient ship from the depths," Cecil explained, looking tired of telling this story. "According to his words, someone is waiting for us there. Until he has learned how to raise the ship, we're waiting."

                "I wish you and all those still fighting the best of luck," Yang said to him. "How I wish I could go with you. I hope my wife fares well."

                "She will," Rosa assured him. "She always does."

                Yang smiled. "Thank you, Rosa. Give Golbez hell for me."

                "Would you like us to use the frying pan?" Astrid asked.

                Yang chuckled. "Wouldn't that be a sight. It acts as a good luck charm, it would seem. Keep it with you, hopefully some of that luck will rub off on you."

                "We will," Cecil promised.

                "Get some rest," Rydia advised him, smiling.

                "You as well,  young summoner," Yang replied. "Where would anyone be without you and your Eidolons?"

                Rydia grinned. "A little worse for wear, I'd bet."

                "If you've said all you need to say, sir Yang needs to rest," the Sylphs scolded them. "Wounds  of this nature do not heal immediately, after all."

                Rydia felt her spirits drop at hearing they would have to be parted again.

                "Don't be sad," Yang instructed them. "You have too much to do and to concern yourselves over. I'll be fine. In fact, I'll be cheering you on from here."

                "Goodbye, Yang," Rosa said, squeezing his hand.

                "Goodbye for now, everyone. Until we meet again," he answered.

                The Sylphs escorted them out of the room and up the stairs in the back of the house to the portal that would take them to the cavern's exit.

                "Do not forget that we promised, summoner," the Sylphs reminded Rydia. "We do not break a promise once it is made."

                Rydia nodded gratefully. "If I need you, I will call for you," she assured them.

                "This gate will take you to the mouth of the cave. Be careful on your journey," they told the group.

                Everyone nodded thankfully, and one by one, stepped onto the portal.

                When they were all standing outside of the cave, Cecil took the lead back to the airship.

                "Well, Astrid. I do believe it's time we paid your father a visit," he said.

                "So long as you let me navigate the trickier bits," Astrid declared, keeping closely in step with the paladin.

                Rydia stared back at the cave as they left it behind them, and felt a faint hum of magic in the back of her mind—a soothing note that eased her conscience. They had left Yang behind, yes, but they would be back for him someday. She didn't know why she felt so certain of this, but somehow she knew there would _be_ a someday. 

               

0-0-0-0-0

 

                The airship maintained a steady high pitched whine as it plowed through the thick, soup-like air on its way back to the dwarf stronghold. Rydia had stayed above deck for most of the journey, hoping to learn something about the lay of the land. Ifrit would love the view, she thought with a smile, imagining the fiery Eidolon treating the magma like his personal bath water. She hadn't thought about her cantankerous guardian for some time. She hoped he was well—his temper just as hot as usual.

                Astrid and Cecil had been exchanging a lot of talk at the wheel, and Rydia had been listening in as usual. It was mostly of airships and their building—nuts and bolts talk—and occasionally of battle plans. After a time, Astrid left Cecil in charge of the controls, leaving behind a compass to keep him on course.

                "Now remember—the tower is affecting gravity and magnetism," Astrid told him. "The compass will point to the tower, but so long as you use that as your north, we should be alright," she explained before retiring to the cabin.

                Rydia stayed with Cecil, helping to keep him awake by chatting about some of the stranger things they had seen on their journeys together. Their conversation stayed light, and they laughed as they reminisced about some of their former companions. Rydia found that she enjoyed hearing about the exploits of the twins and wished she could have known them.

                "You don't have to stay with me for the whole flight," Cecil told her after awhile.

                Rydia looked at him, curiously. Was he bored of her company already? But then she looked across the deck where he had nodded his head, and saw Rosa smiling at Cecil as if she had something she wished to tell him. Rydia smiled with a knowing nod of her head.

                "I think I left something below deck anyway," she told him, taking off in the direction of the door to the cabin.

                She passed Rosa on her way, and the white mage gave her an appreciative little bob. "Thank you, Rydia," she said.

                "Of course," Rydia replied, knowing how little time the two of them had to be together as it was.

                She descended the stairs to the cabin and paused when she heard a conversation behind the door. Astrid was speaking to Edge—more accurately, Astrid was peppering Edge with questions. Rydia stood poised at the door, and decided to eavesdrop; surprised that for once _she_ wasn't the one having to deal with Edge's evasive nature.

                "So have you told her yet?" Astrid was ribbing him relentlessly.  

                "Told her what?" Edge asked, managing to keep his voice even.

                Astrid scoffed, and Rydia could imagine the look of frustration on her face. "You daft prince," she said. "Is this to preserve your reputation? I've gleaned enough from Rosa to know your tastes, but even _I_ can see your mask is slipping."

                Edge was strangely quiet. Rydia held her breath, fearful she might miss something. Who were they talking about?

                Astrid's tone suddenly became light and playful. "So what _are_ the laws of your people concerning transcontinental relationships? How exactly does one get married in Eblan—is it by arrangement? By vote of council?"

                Edge's tone became playful as well, but also biting. "Why, are you putting in your own bid?"

                "Oh please, I could unravel you within a day."

                Edge laughed. "The laws of my people are none of your concern."

                "Ah, but they're _yours,"_ Astrid reminded him. "Get over your damn pride already and be honest."

                "I honestly have nothing to confess," he answered.

                "Bullshit!" Astrid cried. "I'm trying to help you out, but if you're too preoccupied with appearances, perhaps this opportunity is wasted on you."

                "I'll be the judge of that," he retorted, and Rydia straightened as she heard footsteps approach the door.

                She quickly retraced her steps, pretending to approach the door from the top of the stairs. The door opened, and it was Edge who stepped out, looking angry.

                He glanced up and saw her, and his step faltered.

                "Rydia," he said in a clipped voice.

                She blushed, wondering why he was staring at her so intently but not moving. Astrid was standing behind him in the open doorway, crossing her arms and shaking her head. She cleared her throat, and Edge finally moved out of the way, passing Rydia on the stairs without a word.

                "Hi, Rydia!" Astrid called out. "Coming down to escape the heat?"

                Rydia smiled at the engineer's daughter. "Exactly that," she answered, descending the final stairs and walking through the door.

                "Edge looked upset," Rydia said once she'd closed the door. "Did you say something to him?" she asked, fishing for information.

                Astrid gave her a feral grin. "Oh nothing he won't bounce back from, I'm sure," she replied.

                Rydia raised a brow, and then grinned as well. "I'm happy I'm not the only person who can make him upset enough to walk away," she admitted.

                Astrid laughed through her nose. "But you seem to be the only person who can make him come back again," she observed.

                Rydia made a face. "What did you ask him?" she asked, growing tired of talking around the topic.

                Astrid looked smug. "I asked him about his motivations and his interests."

                "And?" Rydia asked curiously.

                Astrid raised a brow at Rydia. "My, my, if you want to know for yourself, why don't you ask him?"

                Rydia blushed again, knowing she would never have the courage to ask him about anything remotely close to the subject Astrid had raised behind closed doors. "Maybe I will," she said instead.

                Astrid chuckled and walked to one of the ship's bunks. "I hope you do," she told Rydia honestly, and sat down, hoisting her feet in next.

                "Wake me if Cecil's about to crash the ship," she requested, before she closed her eyes.

                Rydia sat down at the table in the cabin and laid her hands on the tabletop, glaring at Astrid. Why wouldn't she tell her what she wanted to know? Why was everyone behaving so...oddly?

                She pulled her satchel closer to her with her foot and reached down for another of her books—a bestiary with beautiful illustrations of creatures who were anything but. She lost herself in a world of lore and mystery for another few hours while her friends attended to other matters—whatever those were.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

 

 

                Rydia finally left the cabin when Astrid woke from her nap and bolted out of the cabin with long, purposeful strides. She accompanied the other woman to the helm where Cecil was beckoning.

                "We're almost there," he explained when they drew closer. "There are two entrances. A gate through the barracks, and the other, through the keep."

                "Which is closest to my father?" Astrid asked.

                "Astrid, it would be wise to speak to the king before you invade his stronghold," Cecil advised.

                Astrid growled. "I don't have time for tea," she declared. "I'm here for my father, not to ask permission to haul him out of bed."

                Cecil did not look pleased.

                "If all the Red Wings had was Astrid as their battering ram, they would have toppled every wall, gate, and tower in half the time," Rosa remarked, gazing placidly at Astrid. "They should have spent less time fussing over Cid and more time worrying about his daughter."

                "How right you are, Rosa," Astrid replied with a smile. "Now take me to wherever he is," she insisted, staring Cecil down.

                "When we are held for inquiry, I'm letting you do the explaining," Cecil said, altering their course to follow a plateau that Rydia recognized. After all, she had walked the whole stretch between the dwarf castle and the tower—how could she not?

                Cecil set the Falcon down outside the cliff-side gate to the dwarf barracks. The gates were well camouflaged and guarded.

                The five of them disembarked, and as they approached the gates, the dwarves began to tighten their formation.

                "Be ye soldiers of Golbez?" one guard demanded.

                "It is Cecil and company," Cecil called out to them.

                A few of the dwarves scratched their heads. "But 'e left not long ago. Why return?" another dwarf asked.

                "We left someone important behind," Cecil explained.

                "Stand aside!" Astrid declared with a loud voice. "I've come for my father; the engineer behind the airship fleets, and one hell of a menace. I know he's here, now where is he?"

                The dwarves stared at Astrid, flabbergasted. "Ye cannuh jes' barge yer way!" they said, but she sprinted right past them, outpacing them with her longer legs.

                The dwarves pursued her for a short distance until Cecil and the others caught up and explained a little more thoroughly. "She's not a threat, she's just determined to find her father," Cecil told them, out of breath.

                "Ne'er a daughter so fiery did we e'er see!" they remarked, huffing for air as well. "Are ye sure she wasna born o' the magma pits?"

                Cecil laughed, shaking his head. "No, not quite," he said, amused.

                "Ye can go, then," they said, letting the rest of them pass into the barracks unimpeded.

                When they entered, Astrid was being barred from the adjacent room to the entryway by a wall of more dwarves. "Ye canno trespass!" they were telling her.

                "Astrid, stand down!" Cecil commanded, and Astrid spun on her heel to glare at him.

                To the dwarves, Cecil said, "She's no threat to you. This is the daughter of Cid."

                "Ah," they all said in unison, backing out of the way. Rydia wanted to laugh at how everyone was behaving, like Astrid was some kind of natural disaster.

                "But be mindful of where you bluster off to!" one dwarf insisted, put out. "She nearly toppled our elixir into the dust!"

                Cecil bowed his head apologetically. "We will keep her in check," he assured them, shooing Astrid out of the entryway and into the rest of the barracks with a stern look.

                "Astrid, you don't even know where you're going—so stop thinking you can take the lead," Cecil scolded her a few minutes later.

                "Then stop walking so slowly," she retorted, angling her way around armaments and other odds and ends in the hallways.

                Cecil eventually reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, restraining her as if she was a child. She strained against him, practically pulling him along.

                "Astrid, slow down!" Rosa complained, trying to keep up.

                They finally left the barracks through the locked door that slid on stone gears, giving them access to the castle and all of its accoutrements.

                "It's to your right," Rosa advised, and Astrid barreled onward, swinging the door to the infirmary wide open.

                Astrid stood triumphantly in the doorway. "I've found you, old man," she declared. "Now get up, we've got work to do."

                Rydia followed Astrid into the room and saw Cid shimmying himself to sitting, and staring at his daughter in disbelief. "Astrid!" he bellowed, somewhat unhappily. "A girl like you has no business traipsing across the world, looking for an old fool like me."

                Astrid snorted, and strode toward him, nodding to the nurses on either side of the bed. "Help me get him up," she insisted, putting her arm under her father's armpit and around his back and she pried him out from under the covers. The nurses were dumbfounded, and then began protesting all at once. "He's wounded and not in stable condition!" they pointed out, trying their hardest to get Cid back into bed rather than out of it.

                "Oh, for Babil's sake!" Astrid swore. "You have a pot of elixir next door that no one's using—what good is that?"

                The nurses blanched. "That is only for dire occasions and only at the utmost of need," they sputtered.

                "A time just like this," Astrid huffed, lugging her father to his feet while he leaned heavily against her. "Cecil, I could use your help, since they're being so useless," she complained, causing Cecil to quickly step in to assist her.

                "The elixir is off limits to such a rude person as yourself," the head nurse announced. "One does not invade a place of healing as if it's a barracks on training day."

                Astrid replied with a piercing glare. "I have absolutely no time to be delicate, nor to be patient. This is an emergency—it's the end of the world, and we can't wait any longer. I need him whole and on his feet, and quite frankly, so do you."

                Rydia and the others acted as a shield for Astrid and Cecil as they half dragged, half carried Cid through the dwarf's bunker to where the healing elixir had been placed.

                "You're mad, the lot of you," Cid complained on their journey.

                "Keep it to yourself," Astrid hissed, smiling as disarmingly as she could at the dwarves they passed.

                When they reached the vat that held the glimmering liquid, Astrid dipped in her hand, lifting the elixir in her palm to her father's whiskered mouth. He sipped at it hesitantly.

                "Mm," he muttered, twitching his mustache from side to side. "I've always wondered if there are different vintages of elixir. This tasted rather good—first good thing I've had while I've been down here," he remarked.

                Astrid rolled her eyes as Cecil looked at the engineer exasperatedly. They continued holding on to him until he suddenly threw them off. He stretched his arms out wide, and then pounded on his chest. "Hell fire! I feel good as new!" he bellowed.  

                "Marvelous, he's back to his old self," Edge griped, staying as far away from the engineer as he could.

                Cid spun to see Rydia and the rest. "The lovely ladies, looking lovelier than ever," he said, and then he turned and saw Edge. "Brat."

                "Codger," Edge retaliated, as the two shared a withering stare.

                "So, everything's the same as when I last saw you?" Cid asked, twisting around, and not missing a beat.

                "Mostly," Cecil answered, giving the dwarves around them reassuring looks that all was well.

                None of the dwarves looked particularly pleased about this rowdy group of humans causing such a ruckus in their barracks.

                "Someone please explain to me why my daughter is here in the underworld, acting like some kind of soldier?" he demanded.

                Astrid put her hand on her hip. "You're coming with me to Baron," she said hotly.

                "Well of _course_ I'm going back to Baron—where else would I possibly be going? But to do what, exactly?"

                Astrid sighed. "I finished your fleet."

                "You mean Mid and my engineers finished the fleet," he corrected her.

                She chewed her lip. "Sure," she answered, rolling her eyes. "The fleet is finished and in need of pilots for the assault against Babil."

                Cid furrowed his brow. "There's to be an assault against Babil with an airship fleet? _My_ airship fleet?" he asked. "Who thought up this scheme?"

                Cecil cleared his throat and Cid whirled on him. "That would be me, Cid."

                "You came up with this crazy plan? Excellent! How many ships do we have?" the older man asked excitedly.

                "Including the Falcon and the Enterprise?" Astrid thought, "Six."

                Cid frowned. "You got the Enterprise back from Eblan?" he asked, impressed.

                Astrid smiled widely. "Remote control."

                Cid clapped his daughter hard on the back. "That's my girl! So you've come to get me to pilot one of the ships? Brilliant. When do we begin?"

                "As soon as ye answer to the king 'bout ent'ring his castle withoot 'is leave," a surly dwarf announced from behind.

                Rydia grimaced, and Cecil glared at Astrid. "And the inquiry begins," he muttered to her.

                "Yes, yes, I'll do the explaining," she huffed.

                "We are sorry for intruding," Cecil explained to the dwarf instead.

                "Follow me," the dwarf instructed, gesturing them to follow him.

                They were brought before the king and an odd assembly of guests. Kokkol was also in the throne room with his assistants, as well as the head nurse, and everyone turned at the entrance of the humans.

                "You're back!" Luca cried, galloping down the runner with her pigtails flailing.

                "This is a surprise," the king said, looking them up and down. "Master Cid, should you be up and about?"

                "Good as new!" the engineer announced with a smile while his nurse scowled.

                "But, I thought you had gone to the land of Mysidia," the king muttered. "Why have you returned? Has something gone ill?"

                "It has been an odd turn of events, your majesty," Cecil told the dwarf king.

                "Was the elder of Mysidia in possession of the ancient ship?" the king asked, frowning.

                "He is aware of its existence, but he is seeking a way to find it," Cecil explained. "In the interim, we are making other preparations aboveground."

                "Other preparations? What do you mean?"

                "We have another fleet of airships making ready to mount an attack on the tower."

                "More of those flying contraptions?" the king asked. "You think this will work?"

                "If we succeed, they might not have to do anything at all. If we fail?" Cecil asked, shaking his head.

                "Precautionary," the king mused. "Aye, this is wise. What need you of master Cid?"

                "I'm to pilot one of the ships in the seige!" Cid announced proudly.

                "And who is this other human with you?" the king asked, looking strangely at Astrid. "She has hair like fire!"

                "I'm _that_ one's daughter," Astrid explained, pointing at Cid.

                The king glanced between the two of them. "Truly?" he asked.

                "My own flesh and blood!" Cid declared.

                "You have come for Cid only?" the king asked, sounding disappointed.

                Astrid looked pointedly at Cecil, until Cecil took her meaning.

                "Actually, your majesty, we have a proposition for you..."

                 

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                "Very good," the king said, walking them to their airship. They had made plans for a contingent of dwarves to come aboard and join the war effort, and the king was to head their group. Kokkol had decided to walk with them out of interest for the airship itself, and he and Cid were getting along famously talking about its components.

                Edge had climbed aboard the ship ahead of everyone and called down over the railing. "Astrid, why do we still have that lump of rock on the ship?"

                "Rock? What rock?" Cid asked, looking at his daughter.

                "Adamant," Astrid replied offhandedly, glaring at Edge on the deck. "Stop complaining, prince! It's not getting in _your_ way."

                "What—you've got ore? Adamant?" Kokkol sputtered excitedly.

                The old man sprinted up the gangplank faster than anyone thought him capable. Astrid, realizing what she had said, out-ran him and shielded the heavy lump of rock with her body. "This is _my_ ore, and I decide what's done with it," she insisted.

                "It was _my_ tail you traded it for," Rydia objected, following at a slower jog up the ramp.

                "Do you know how many years I've spent looking for that ore?" Kokkol insisted. "Decades!"

                "And my father has been looking for this ore to construct better equipment for his designs!" Astrid countered.

                "I would make a sword to put all other swords to shame, and you want nothing more than to build a passing fancy—an object that will be but one in many and not survive the tests of time."

                "I take offense to that!" Cid bellowed. "Just moments ago, you were telling me how brilliant a contraption these airships are!"

                "That was before I knew you were planning on using such a rare metal for such frivolous purposes!" Kokkol replied, his feeble voice warbling in his excitement.

                "How much of this ore do you even need?" Astrid wanted to know, looking sharply at the ore laying on the ship's deck.

                Kokkol examined it shrewdly. "That depends on how much ore is contained in the rock itself—whether or not there are impurities—and being able to extract it cleanly..." he muttered to himself.

                Astrid tapped her foot impatiently. "You need all of it, is what you're saying."

                "Well, what I mean to say is, if we were to split the stone in half, there would be no guarantee that the portions of the ore would be equitable. I might be left with very little, while you, with an abundant supply."

                "I can't let you keep all of it," Astrid replied heatedly. "Not after all the bartering I did for it."

                Rydia glanced sideways at Astrid, wondering just how much bartering actually _had_ taken place.

                "We must come to some kind of agreement, then," Kokkol insisted. "I hold on to the ore, and use only what I need. What is left over, I will smelt and fashion into whatever you might need."

                Astrid looked down her nose at the older man, considering his offer. "Done," she said at last.

                "Astrid!" Cid huffed, staring at his daughter. "What makes you think you're in any position to make arrangements for such a rare material?"

                Astrid turned on her father, both hands on her hips. " _I'm_ the one who finished those ships—whose flown across the world for this mission—who came to the underworld to find _you—_ and _I'm_ the one who bartered for this ore. That puts me in precisely the position to be making arrangements," she argued.

                Cid made a face, staring at his daughter in shock.

                "Well, then. So long as he promises to spare me what I require, this deal sounds fair enough," Cid admitted reluctantly.

                "Oh, good!" Kokkol exclaimed, hobbling over to the smooth, irregularly shaped rock, and directing his dwarf assistants to carry it for him off of the ship. Kokkol then approached Cecil, holding out his hand. "That sword of yours," he said expectantly.

                Cecil looked at him, perplexed. "My—sword?" he asked. " You were serious? All of this trouble for a sword?"

                Kokkol looked utterly offended. "Just a sword?" he sputtered. "This is not just for any sword! This is to anneal the metal of your legendary weapon with its match—to make the matchless metal. You give me that sword, and I'll leave you one that will put all other legends to shame!"

                Cecil looked at Cid, baffled.

                "Dunno about making a damn fine sword, but that metal'll make excellent tools and filaments," Cid said with a shrug.

                Cecil reached for the sword at his side, prying it and its scabbard from his belt and handing it to the smith.

                The old man looked fit to burst. He rushed off the ship, joining his assistants down below. "You won't regret this!" he assured them.

                "I have not seen that man happy in many a great while," the king observed, scratching his beard, as he climbed aboard with his dwarves.

                Cecil smiled helplessly. "I'm just happy to have that heavy material off of the deck," he said.

                "We'd best be off," Cid announced, walking to the controls, as everyone else climbed aboard.

                "This journey," the king asked. "Will it take long? I've never been off of the ground before, nor have I been above it."

                "You'll love this, then!" Cid announced. "Don't you worry, I'll have us out of the underworld in a matter of hours."

                The dwarves looked unsettled, but Rosa assured them they were in safe hands.

                "Doubtful!" one of the dwarves said. "I saw him in the room of healin'! A real devil, he was!"

                Rydia smiled, shaking her head, as Astrid, Cid, and Cecil all argued at the helm. After a few minutes, the argument was sorted, and Cid took over the ship, raising it from the ground with a tremendous effort. There were, after all, six humans and ten dwarves now aboard, and the propellers strained to free the ship of the earth's gravity.

                Eventually, they did rise, and Cid flew them north to the great pile of rubble that had once been the mountains of Agart.

                The dwarves huddled in the center of the ship, watching with consternation, as their homeland passed by below them.

                "How exciting!" Cid bellowed as he directed them toward the light spilling into the underworld from the world above it. "Who knew a war could bring so many people together!"

                Rydia glanced at the engineer, and then at the others on the deck of the ship. How odd but true his words were. They had all come from different places and different times, but somehow, they had all found themselves here—aboard this ship.

                 She smiled, as she felt a surge of defiance rise. For this brief moment, she felt invincible. Together, they were strong, an unstoppable force.

                "For freedom!" Cid cried out fiercely, chuckling at his own battle cry.

                "For freedom!" everyone echoed, hopeful in the face of their uncertain future. 


	27. Lunar Bound

 

                "This ship feels like a bag of bones," Astrid was remarking angrily, as she removed panels from the deck and checked the levers' connections.

                "Astrid, you have no business rooting around in a ship that I'm flying," her father retorted, jerking the wheel and lurching the ship uncomfortably.

                "Construction and engineering I leave to you, the fine tuning of the circuits and conduits are my territory," she muttered, poking around in the mechanisms. She yanked a handful of leads out of one panel. "Did you even _design_ this ship?" she said, appalled.

                Cid made a face bordering on pure outrage. "Of _course_ I designed it!" he bellowed. "Who else in the world would have the technical skill to not only draw the blueprint but also to build it?"

                "But these controls are all backwards," Astrid complained. "It's as if someone was looking through a mirror when they compared the blueprints to the completed model. Took me a hell of an afternoon making heads or tails of it in Mysidia. In fact, I'm tempted to say this looks like one of your earliest designs with some...interesting modifications. There is an entire circuit board for a system that I haven't identified."

                Cid scrunched his lips into an imperceptible line. "Now that you mention it, these levers aren't as responsive as I'm used to. Power seems to be diverted to a secondary output."

                "Doesn't help that you plastered a drill onto the hull, ruining the balance completely."

                "I made the necessary calibrations!" Cid objected, rocking the ship again.

                "What, you shifted all of the cargo in the hold to the opposite side so that it would limp more effectively through the air? Astrid quipped.

                Rydia sighed as she listened to Cid argue with his daughter at the helm, and then glanced over at the dwarves who were seated as a group in the middle of the deck—their backs pressed together as they endured Cid's erratic flying. Rydia could imagine their discomfort; spending their entire lives underground, and then to be subjected to one of Cid's machines and his piloting. The dwarves spoke to each other in hushed tones and Rydia noticed that Cecil was standing beside the king, nodding to questions Giott was asking.   

                Rydia hopelessly shook her head, knowing the effort it would take to reassure the dwarves that they were in good hands. From the expression on Cecil's face, it was taking quite a bit of convincing.

                Cid finally flew them upwards through the gaping chasm they had drilled through the ceiling of the underworld, and the steady climb popped Rydia's ears. The air plunged from boiling hot to briskly cool before Cid brought the ship to a stationary hover above the mountains of Agart.

                "Where am I headed, exactly? Baron or Mysidia?" Cid called out to Cecil from the helm.

                "Mysidia," Cecil shouted back, moving away from the dwarves and toward the engineer.

                Rydia glanced at the helm for a moment, having been talking to Rosa about what to do with the frying pan in their possession. Neither could decide who should carry it, and then a commotion arose from the belly of the ship.

                Edge strode up the cabin stairs, hoisting a small bundle of flailing arms and legs at his side. When he reached the top of the stairs, he released his captive, and a small dwarf face shook itself free of the shirt that had been pulled over it.

                It was Luca, the king's daughter. She glared at Edge, who stared back at her, unimpressed.

                "Your majesty, we have a stowaway," Edge informed Giott, who stood up with a start once he'd seen his daughter.

                "Luca! What are you doing aboard this ship?" Giott demanded, his eyes flicking between his daughter and the ninja prince.

                Luca planted her feet firmly against the deck and stuck up her chin. "You're too old to be fighting a war in the air," she declared.

                "And you, too young!" he argued, striding toward her.

                 For her small stature, Luca was formidable as she stared up at her father. "I want to see the world for myself," she said adamantly.

                "I absolutely forbid it!" Giott shouted, decidedly put-out.

                "Mother would have let me!"

                "Your mother would have let you hear about it from the safety of our walls. You are not a son who can bear arms!"

                "It's not _my_ fault you didn't father any sons," Luca argued, seeming to think this was not a reasonable enough excuse for her to stay behind.

                Giott turned a shade darker and puffed out his cheeks, trying to craft a rebuttal to his daughter's argument, and failing.

                Edge snuck away, deciding that his part in the family matter was finished, and approached Rydia and Rosa. He leaned against the airship railing beside them with a sigh while the argument between father and daughter resumed. "I never thought I'd find myself on the wrong side of this argument," he dryly remarked.

                "Wrong side?" Rydia asked.

                "I agree with Giott on this one," he answered.

                Rydia arched a brow as she glanced at him sidelong. "I thought you always took the side of the rebel."

                Edge looked back at her sharply. "Not when they're five."

                She made a face at him. "That's so—unexpectedly protective of you."

                "I do draw lines, Rydia," he replied with a perplexed smile.

                She shook her head, thinking that whatever lines he drew were wavy at best, and noticed that Luca was gaining more ground in the argument against her father.

                With one firm word from Giott, however, Luca stormed disgustedly off the ship's deck to the cabin below. Meanwhile, her father seemed ready to faint.

                Cid chuckled from the helm. "You echo my sentiments exactly, your majesty! I was surprised to see my own daughter foolishly charging into the fray."

                "And saving your ass," Astrid remarked, holding a variety of tools in her hands and looking none-too-pleased.

                "Aye, and that," Cid added sourly.

                "I cannot believe my child would do something so foolish!" Giott huffed, turning to look at the engineer.

                Cid left the controls to Cecil and walked to the king and his band of dwarves. "Well, now that she's here, she may as well stay. It will take too much time to fly all the way back," he assured the king, patting him on the shoulder.

                Giott sighed, and Rydia raised a brow, surprised that they were going to take Luca with them after all.

                Cid then took notice of her and the other two leaning against the railing, watching the proceedings.

                "I can't imagine my daughter was much help to you, anyway," Cid muttered, walking toward them.

                Edge laughed. "Well," he admitted. "She was mostly useless, but at least she was entertaining."

                "Entertaining?" Cid asked, narrowing his eyes. "I hardly see how my daughter wading through a cave of fiends would be entertaining."

                "She wields tools like no one I've ever seen," Edge reflected, grinning.

                Rydia giggled, also remembering Astrid's prowess in battle. Cecil had purposely left a fiend near death to provide her an easy mark, and Astrid had willingly taken the offering.

                "Wielded?" Cid asked, flabbergasted. " _Wielded?_ Against what—she surely didn't _kill_ anything, did she? _"_

                "She killed one fiend," Rydia recounted.              

                "Truly?" Cid pressed.

                Edge laughed, his arms folded across his chest. "With a battle cry of _'science!'_."

                Cid burst into a belly laugh. " _Science_?" he echoed, laughing harder. "What an—that's the most uninspiring battle cry I've ever heard!"

                "Hey!" Astrid shouted, striding across the deck and waving a wrench in the air. "I'll have you know that you're flying on a contraption of science as we speak. Lucky for you that it's keeping us from plummeting to our deaths with the modifications _I've_ made!"

                Rydia hazarded a glance at the dwarves who were staring at Astrid, mortified.

                "True, you are," Cid answered, nonplussed. "But a battle cry should be more impressive—it should instill the fear of death into your enemy, my dear!"

                Astrid made a face. "Noted."

                "Perhaps for now, you should put your skills to use at the helm," her father suggested, nodding toward Cecil whose lips were set in a thin line of concentration as he kept the unwieldy vessel in check.

                Astrid grinned wolfishly. "Ah." she agreed, taking his meaning, and walking over to relieve Cecil of his duty at the ship's controls.

                Rydia felt Rosa's glare over her shoulder at the comment.

                "Cid," the white mage said icily.

                Cid simply shrugged. "What? I might get a little excited with the controls when I'm irritated, but that doesn't change the fact that Cecil has crashed more of my ships than anyone else."

                Rosa sighed, but Rydia couldn't help but grin. Not everyone could be perfect, after all.

0-0-0-0

 

                It wasn't long before they flew within sight of Mysidia. The dwarves took the opportunity to pry  themselves off the deck and hesitantly peek overboard at the city.

                "So this is the holy city!" Giott exclaimed, stroking his beard with one hand while clutching the railing firmly with his other.

                Cid angled their descent, having taken over for Astrid, and allowed the dwarves a better view. "Aye, that's the holy city," Cid confirmed, sounding amused by the dwarves' enthusiasm.

                "It's so bright!" one dwarf cried out.

                "Look't all that bloo stuff!" another said.

                Rydia giggled, knowing they were amazed by the sight of the ocean below as she looked over the side with them.

                Cid delivered them to their destination none the worse for wear, and once Rydia and their small company were standing on the field beside the ship, did another person appear at the top of the ship's plank.

                "Luca will remain in Mysidia," Giott informed them as Luca rolled her eyes, walking down the ship's ramp. The princess looked disappointed, but undefeated.  "She will be safer here, I suspect," Giott continued. "The holy city will be a good place for her to learn of the world and stay out of trouble. Please look after her."

                "What about you, your majesty?" Cecil asked, genuinely curious.

                Giott looked nervously at Cid and the engineer smiled through crooked teeth. "I will accompany Master Cid to Baron. We will make war preparations as we deem fit."

                "You just get your hands on that Whale thing-a-ma-jig," Cid shouted down to them. "The sooner you get to the bottom of this, the better I'll sleep at night."

                Cecil nodded, and Luca walked the last few feet down the ship's ramp to join them on the ground. Meanwhile, Astrid and the dwarves hauled the ramp back onto the ship to prepare for departure. Rydia glanced down at Luca and noticed that the dwarf princess was doing an admirable job of appearing brave. Rydia remembered how it had felt all those years ago to leave the village of Kaipo with a stranger—to set out on her own. She rested her hand on the girl's shoulder, and the princess looked up at her gratefully.

                The ship's propellers spun to life again, and Rydia happened to glance at Edge who was looking at Luca with a dubious expression. His opinions on her joining them had evidently remained unchanged.

                "Why don't you go with them?" Rydia asked Edge privately.

                He crossed his arms and looked back at her with a sigh, saying nothing. There was a spark of annoyance in his gaze and Rydia frowned, wondering what had changed his mind from his earlier plans.

                "Good luck, Cid!" Rosa shouted up to the deck.

                "Aye, and to you!" Cid called back, lifting the ship slowly into the air.

                The wind from the ship's propellers buffeted them, as the party turned from the field and walked to the city.

                Now that they had returned from their strange adventure, Rydia's thoughts returned to the task at hand. Had anything been accomplished in their absence, or had they lingered with Astrid too long?

                "Who lives in the holy city?" Luca suddenly asked, when they were nearing the city gates.

                It was Rosa who looked back at the girl with a sympathetic smile. "Mysidia is the city of magic, Luca. Mages are schooled here in the ways of the elemental and healing arts."

                "They are crystal worshipers?" she inquired.

                Rosa pursed her lips, trying to wrap her head around Luca's question, but eventually nodded. "Yes, I suppose they are."

                Once they had reached the city gate, a group had already amassed to greet them. At their head, was Mysidia's elder who was wringing his hands—beside himself. "Four days you've been gone!" he scolded them as if they were his students and not warriors of renown. Rydia blanched, feeling sympathy for those who _were_ his students.

                "Hurry, you must be quick," he instructed, leading them to his carriage.

                The chocobos pulled them through the city while the Elder explained to Cecil and Rosa the important findings the mages had uncovered. After a meandering journey through the narrow streets and vertical climbs, they were finally deposited in the courtyard of the tower of prayer.

                The elder was the first to disembark, and hastily led them up the entrance stairs, through the foyer, and into the crystal room. The sound of their many feet echoed all throughout the glass room, and then the elder opened a door behind the crystal dais to an impressive granite staircase. They climbed the winding stairs with its elegant friezes and ancient scripts, and Rydia suspected they were being led to a place where few people were allowed—the very top of the tower of prayer. The stairs ended at a platform that was open to the air with polished granite pinnacles rising from each corner. Between the pinnacles, were vistas looking out to each cardinal direction of the map. Standing as they were, they could see for miles—they could even catch a faint impression of Mount Ordeals far to the east.

                "We have located the necessary incantation that will raise the ship," the Elder was explaining, bustling about with preparations that were unknown to the five of them. "It answers to magic of the old order, and it will take all of our prayers to bring it forth."

                "I don't understand," Rosa said, inspecting the number of mages standing around them on the platform. There was an equal number of white and black mages wearing ceremonial robes and elegant tassles.

                The Elder ignored Rosa's query, and began to tell his people what to do and where to stand.     

                Rydia's eyes turned from the mages toward the floor where a chalk outline had been sprinkled. It was flecked with something metallic and there was a feel of magic to it. Whatever had been used to make the marking was enchanted.

                "Everyone take your places," the elder instructed the mages he had arranged.

                Rydia and the others stepped back, giving the mages more space. She bumped into Edge and hastily made an apology, but then frowned at his lack of acknowledgement. She glanced back at him to see he was glaring in the direction of the Elder. She followed his eyes, curiously.

                "What is wrong with you?" she hissed.

                At that, he flicked his gaze to her, but his expression remained inscrutable behind his mask. Even so, she found it strange he had neglected to remove it. He had been acting strangely lately; ever since--

                The Elder's sudden proclamation turned her thoughts back to the mages, who had all arranged themselves around the points of the compass drawn on the floor. The elder took his place in the center. "Now, everyone, pray with all your heart. Prophecy must be made reality," he said, raising his arms. "There is no other time but now!"

                Rydia took another step back as she watched each of the mages dip their heads down and begin an incantation that sounded—unearthly. They spoke in unison, their voices layering atop each other like a finely tuned choir. As they chanted, thin filaments of light and color emblazoned the drawn circle on the floor, spiraling inward from red to green to blue to orange until pillars of light rose up from corners of the geometric designs drawn within the circle. The beams rose upwards and then tilted toward each other, like a prism being refocused. The individual colors merged and became one, a single focused beam that shot out of the tower and toward the ocean in the distance.

                The hair on Rydia's arms stood on end, responding to a current in the room brought on by the magic; while a thunderous roar reached her ears. It grew in volume until, at last, the elder opened his eyes.

                " Behold, my children!" he said, sounding drunk with satisfaction. "She has heard our prayers! The promised ship of light—the Lunar whale!" he cried, directing their attention to the west.

                Rydia and the others walked to the side of the tower, staring out and over the city as a whirlpool that looked as though Leviathan himself had churned up the depths, disrupted the bay. The waves had already engulfed the shore, furiously crashing against the land; but it was what had risen out of the center of the whirlpool that made everyone gasp and shield their eyes.

                A giant shape, iridescent like the tower of Babil, but flashing and pulsing like a beating heart, was rising out of the water. Ocean water fell from it in cascades to the bay below, and when it had risen high enough in the air to be fully seen from the tower, the glow it emitted shot out like a pulse, once, twice, and then a third time, before fading to a low silvery gleam.

                "This is the ship that will ferry you to the moon," the elder told them, leading them back to the stairwell. "You must go at once."

                "Elder?" Cecil inquired, studying the older man carefully as they hurriedly descended the stairs.

                "You must be quick—the time is short, and the person who waits for you is growing impatient," the older man replied.

                Rydia had to practically skip down the steps to keep up, and Luca with her shorter legs, was having even greater difficulty.

                "Is there anything else about this person you can tell us?" Cecil asked as they were led down the stairs and once again across the crystal chamber.

                "Nothing other than he knows something of our plight. You must go," the elder said, leading them to the courtyard and to another carriage drawn by chocobos.

                Before they mounted the carriage, Cecil turned to Luca, as if remembering her for the first time. "Elder, there is something else I must ask."

                "Be quick, man, what is it?"

                Cecil nodded to Luca. "This is Luca, daughter of King Giott. We have been asked that she be kept safe."

                The Elder beckoned to Luca. "Come here, child. We will make sure that you are taken care of," he told the princess.

                Luca glanced at the four of them, looking like she wanted to go with them, but Rosa smiled down at her with a shake of her head.

                "We can't take you with us," the white mage told her. "Your father wants you safe, and we can't guarantee your safety where we're going."

                Luca made a disappointed face, but reluctantly joined the Elder on the stairs.

                "This will take you to the field where the ship has landed," the Elder told them. "Go with our blessings, and the blessings of the entire world."

                "Thank you," Cecil assured the Elder, as the four of them mounted the carriage and were swept away into the city.

0-0-0-0-0

 

                They were brought to the ship over bumpy roads and were left to stand beside the behemoth of a vessel, wondering how they were supposed to board it. They walked along the side of the ship, admiring the sheer size of it, when a panel opened above them and a ramp unexpectedly descended to the ground.

                "This looks promising," Cecil remarked, waiting until the metal ramp had finished assembling itself so they could climb it.

                The ramp, they discovered, led into the side of the ship, where they found themselves invited into a small chamber lit with flashing lights.

                "This can't be the entirety of the ship," Edge complained, looking around at the cramped quarters.

                The floor suddenly shifted beneath their feet, and they clung to the walls as the outside panel of the ship closed behind them, shutting them in. Rydia felt them being lifted and transported somewhere else—a sensation that lasted for only a few seconds before another panel opened and they were deposited into a much larger chamber.

                They stepped out gingerly, looking around.

                "That was just the entrance," Cecil observed, taking a few more steps. "This must be the rest of the ship."

                Edge nodded as he looked up at the ceiling above them. "Now I'm impressed."

                Rydia looked up as well, amazed by the scope of the ship. It was cavernous, and the whole interior glowed dimly; streams of lights glistening through panels and wires—a living machine.

                The four of them spread out to look around; touching panels, climbing stairs, and inspecting toggles.

                "This is incredible," Rosa murmured, brushing her fingers over a podium alight with numerous buttons. The moment she'd made contact, the rest of the ship brightened; overhead lights flickering to life and running the length of the ceiling.

                Everyone paused to look up, afraid they'd triggered a trap.

                Rydia released a slow breath when the ship remained quiet aside from a faint humming coming from the belly of its engine room.

                "So this is the Lunar Whale," Edge said, glancing about the room with a suspicious expression.

                Cecil, in the meanwhile, was inspecting the controls on the ship's deck. "How is one supposed to operate this ship?" he said mostly to himself.

                Rydia glanced up at the paladin, at the look of frustration he wore as he inspected consoles and panels trying to find answers. Edge joined him on the deck a moment later, but after a few minutes, the both of them stood perplexed amid the machinery with twin expressions of annoyance.

                "Does it require a verbal command?" Edge asked.

                "But where would we enter such a command?" Cecil replied, sounding put-out.

                Rydia left the two of them to figure out the ship's controls and took a walk around the room. The ship was clean, sterile, much like portions of the Tower of Babil; and blinking lights set into the floor formed the boundaries of its main cabin.

                She wandered to the wall opposite the helm, following one particular trail of lights; and a panel of the cabin wall swooshed upwards at her approach. Rydia stood stock still, surprised, and saw that the wall had opened into a doorway. She peeked through it and discovered another cabin much like the first. It remained unlit until she took her first step into the room. Lights then flickered on and the overhead illumination spread upon several rows of vertical cylinders affixed to the floor. The cylinders lined the outer walls of the room and two rows occupied the room's center; each with a metal and glass door that stood open, parallel to the floor. Rydia frowned. What on earth were the cylinders used for? She walked further into the cabin and stepped closer to one of the cylinders, walking around it as she peered at the apparatus of metal, glass, and tubing.

                She noticed a chair nestled into the first device, when suddenly, the front panel of the cylinder began to descend. Rydia failed to jump back quickly enough, and shrieked when the door scooped her into the cylinder, shutting her in.  

                She stumbled into the chair, having no choice but to turn around and fall into it. The chair was oddly conformed to the contours of her body and there was a set of buttons embedded into the armrest. Rydia glanced at them, wondering if the buttons controlled the pod or the ship. After all, there had been no chair at the ship's deck nor a wheel as she'd been accustomed to seeing. She pressed the buttons hoping to open the door, but instead, a number of other things began to happen at once. A metal device was lowered from the ceiling of the pod, and several tubes attached to needles curled around the armrest. Rydia tried to bolt out of the chair, alarmed, but found her arms and legs trapped by a set of clamps. She struggled, but was held fast as she watched the needles inject the veins of her arms with sharp pricks, and as the metal cap was lowered slowly onto her head. She cried out for help, thrashing against the machine for as long as it took for the injected agents to compel her into a deep sleep.  

0-0-0-0

                "Did you hear that?" Edge asked Rosa who was being more nuisance than help as Cecil attempted to decipher the controls. Edge had given up on the two of them momentarily, and thought he had heard something odd from another part of the ship less than a minute before. He hoped idly that Rydia might have found something useful in another part of the ship—but where? One minute she had been in the same room as them, and the next, she was gone.

                Rosa stared at him, and then around the cabin. "Hear what?" she asked.

                "It sounded like a yelp," Edge answered, frowning.

                Rosa shrugged with a sigh. "All I've heard is the argument we've been having and the thrum of the engines."

                "Do you know where Rydia went?" he asked.

                "I think she went that way," Rosa said, pointing to the wall in the back of the room.

                Annoyed, Edge left the helm and walked toward the back wall, staring at the arrangement of lights and noticing that there appeared to be a walkway indicated by how they were set into the floor and wall. Curiously, he approached where the lights ran vertically, and stepped back as the wall panel slid upwards with a gust of air.

                Past the doorway, he saw another chamber that contained rows of vertical cylinders along each wall, and several in the center of the room. All of them stood open save for one, whose exterior was pulsing with lights and strange symbols. Edge approached the glowing cylinder, peering through the glass.

                Within, he saw Rydia strapped to a chair. There was a strange metal apparatus on her head blinking with more lights and symbols, and there were needles attached to tubes inserted into her arms. Edge felt his pulse quicken with uncertainty—had she been injured—was she even still alive? His eyes swept over her, checking for signs of life, and sure enough—her chest rose and fell in regular, if slow, intervals. Her eyes were closed as though she were sleeping, and her expression remained relaxed.

                "Rydia!" he shouted, banging on the glass. She didn't stir, and when he failed to encourage the cylinder to open, he began to press buttons on the exterior console at random.

                Suddenly, the ship lurched. Edge felt his stomach drop into his feet as the Lunar Whale began to ascend, fighting gravity. So Cecil had found a way to get it to fly at last.

                "I need some help in here!" Edge called through the open doorway behind him and into the main chamber of the ship.

                Rosa entered a few minutes later, looking at him curiously, and then at the cylinder he was standing beside.

                "What happened?" she asked, her eyes scanning the room for Rydia.

                Edge pointed to the strange pod, and Rosa peered through the glass at his side. "What is she doing in there?" she asked, alarmed. "How do we get her out—is she in pain?"

                Edge shrugged, tugging at panels and pushing buttons. "It looks like she's asleep."

                Rosa began to breathe a little faster, her anxiety mounting. "We have to get her out of there--there's no telling what this device might do to her, or to any of us, for that matter," she continued, walking around the cylinder. "What was she thinking, even getting inside?"

                "She probably thought she might lift her feet up for a while," Edge smartly replied, trying to pry the door open with his hands again.

                The ship lurched, putting on a burst of speed that made the two of them waver on their feet. Rosa glanced back at the control room. "What is Cecil doing?" she wondered aloud.

                "Flying us to the moon," Edge answered at her glare.

                The white mage sighed, staring at the pod again. "It won't open, and she can't hear us," Rosa lamented. "What are we supposed to do?"

                Edge placed his hands on his hips, glaring at the confounding pod. "Can you cast Libra on her?"

                Rosa blinked as if the thought was novel to her, and then closed her eyes and began to chant. She spoke the incantation, the tips of her fingers glowing green with her spell; but once the incantation was complete, she frowned out of irritation. "It's—shielded," she said, haltingly. "My magic can't pass through the barrier."

                Edge bumped his head against the glass in defeat. "We have no choice but to wait until the pod opens on its own," he muttered angrily.

                "There's nothing I can do for her," Rosa concluded, annoyed. "I'm going to tell Cecil what's happened. Stay here with her in case anything changes," she instructed him.

                Edge merely nodded. He'd had no intention of leaving, anyway.

0-0-0-0-0

 

                Several hours passed and Edge had grown tired of staring at the uncooperative pod holding Rydia prisoner. There was nothing to be done about the situation, he'd discovered. Cecil was too busy keeping the ship on its intended course to leave the controls, and Rosa had already concluded that there was nothing to do but wait. That left Edge on his own—bored.

                He had already explored the rest of that particular cabin, and even ventured into a few cabins beyond. In one chamber, he had discovered a peculiar mechanical in the fashion of a chocobo. It spoke to him in a strange language before altering its speech to accommodate his own. The mechanical bird offered to store his possessions and give information, but Edge had nothing to offer it, nor could he coax it into revealing information that he actually required. Any information pertaining to the ship and its systems required an access code, and Edge left in annoyance, wondering why everything in the damn ship required a code. There was also the matter of why the ship's main censors and panels activated for Cecil but not for anyone else.

                Granted, ever since Cecil had gotten the ship to fly, it had been doing strange things all on its own. It chimed out sporadic warnings and announcements in the unfamiliar language; the pressure within the ship's cabins fluctuated at random; and there had been a moment, where Edge had been convinced his feet had left the floor.

                The last time he'd joined Cecil on the control deck, there had been nothing but black sky around them; stars blinking in an eternal expanse.

                Now, as Edge made his second return to the bridge, the glass windows that lined the ship's bow allowed him to glimpse an entirely different sight—their destination—the twin moon. It was much larger than Edge had expected, and bright, reflecting the light of the sun.

                "Are we nearly there?" Edge asked, joining Rosa and Cecil at the ship's main controls.

                It took a moment for Cecil to answer, and when he did, he stared at the ninja with a look of consternation. "I have no idea how to monitor our distance," he revealed with a grimace. "Nor do I know how to land the ship."

                Edge raised his brows as he stared back at the paladin. "That's promising."

                "You were able to get the ship off the ground," Rosa assured him. "Surely, you can make it land."

                Edge squinted at Cecil. "How _were_ you able to launch the ship?" he wanted to know.

                Cecil gazed at the controls, and then at a dais in the center of the console that held a crystal Edge hadn't seen before.

                "The ship is controlled by a crystal," Cecil said, though he seemed just as perplexed as the rest of them. "I touched one of the panels and this apparatus rose out of the console."

                "You don't find it odd that you're the only person who can pilot the ship," Edge commented, walking around the crystal dais.

                "I find it extremely odd," Cecil admitted. "But I'm hoping that it might have something to do with whoever asked that I come to the moon. Perhaps the ship was programmed to do exactly that—get me there."

                Edge glanced speculatively at Cecil, remaining unconvinced of the fact that anyone had so much as thought of this ship in hundreds of years, let alone altered its trajectory.

                "Well, then. While you figure out how to land the ship, I'll be waiting for Rydia to wake up," Edge informed them.

                "She's still in there?" Cecil asked, looking up suddenly.

                Edge glanced over his shoulder as he returned down the bridge stairs. "I don't have your witchy powers over the ship to get her out, if that's what you're asking."

                Cecil gave him a flat look before returning his attention to the Whale's consoles.

                Edge, in the meanwhile, returned to the second cabin and to the pod that held Rydia captive. It would be a long journey on the moon if they left a sleeping summoner aboard the ship.

0-0-0-0

 

                The ship's inertia brought Edge to his feet less than an hour later. Had they landed? He hadn't felt the tell-tale jolt that was typical of Cecil's piloting, so he walked to the cabin door to figure out exactly what had happened. Before he had left the room, however, the sound of a mechanical latch coming un-snicked, and a swoosh of a door turned him back around. The pod holding Rydia had opened, and the manacles, tubes, and wires were mechanically removed from her body, though she continued to sit limply in the chair, asleep.

                Edge approached her slowly, pausing when her eyes fluttered open and she attempted to rise. It was a feeble effort, as she was disoriented and dazed, and she stumbled forward over the threshold of the pod. Edge dove forward to catch her, grabbing her by the shoulders just before she hit the ground, and carefully set her down against the wall of the pod as she rubbed her head.

                She groaned, swaying drunkenly. "What happened?" she asked, finally squinting through cracked eyelids.

                Edge looked her over, resting the back of his hand to her forehead to make sure she wasn't ill. "You seem well enough," he grumbled. "How do you feel?"

                Rydia blinked, coming more awake. "I feel—" she frowned, rolling her shoulders. "I feel fine, actually. Better than fine—I feel rested."

                Edge stared at her in disbelief and took hold of one of her arms, running his thumb over the red marks in her skin where the needles had been inserted. Rydia winced and Edge glanced up, hoping he hadn't caused her pain. She gazed back at him, turning a little pink in the cheeks.

                He retracted his hand, his fingertips lightly brushing the soft skin on the inside of her wrist before he took a step back, giving her more room.

                Edge cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think Cecil's landed the ship."

                Rydia sat up straighter. "We're on the moon?" she asked.

                "I was about to figure that out when you woke up from your coma," he remarked, offering her his hand to lift her up.

                She waved him off, pushing herself off of the pod behind her as she unsteadily rose to her feet.

                Edge kept to her side, eyeing her closely to be sure she wouldn't fall on her face, as they walked together into the main cabin of the ship.

               

0-0-0-0

                Rydia wondered how long she had been asleep, but as she followed Edge onto the bridge, there were far more pressing things to wonder about instead.

                'Well?" Edge asked Cecil, strolling across the tiled floor beside her and bounding up the stairs to the controls. "Have we landed?"

                Rydia elected to stay on the level below, receiving a warm hug and a thorough inspection from Rosa, before she glanced to the platform above them and saw Cecil standing by the flight controls, frowning at screens and panels as though they were a puzzle he had to solve.

                Cecil hadn't answered Edge's question; instead, he continued to scowl as he stared at something that was casting light on his face. It took a moment for him to realize the others were waiting for his reply, and he finally glanced up at Edge and then at Rydia and Rosa below.

                When Cecil's eyes fell on her, they lit up with relief. "Rydia!" he said, looking as though a weight had been removed from his shoulders.

                She smiled up at him feebly. "Edge filled me in a little," she told him.

                "You weren't injured, were you?" Cecil asked, frowning again as he looked her over from head to toe.

                Rydia hugged her arms to her chest. "I feel as though I've slept enough to last a year, honestly," she answered with a grin. "But I feel perfectly fine."

                Cecil sighed, looking grateful that she was up and about, and then grimaced at the panel he had previously been tinkering with.

                "As for the ship, I believe we've landed," he said hesitantly, walking to another panel and inspecting that one as well. He touched something, and suddenly a voice chimed overhead.

                It was the voice of a woman, giving instructions in a calm and even tone, but speaking in a language none of them knew.

                All of them looked up and around, expecting something to happen, but the voice simply seemed to be relaying the same information over and over again. Rydia began to recognize a few brief phrases, and she looked at Cecil who had crossed his arms and was frowning again.

                "Cecil, what is it?" Rosa asked, disturbed by his reaction.

                Cecil sighed, glancing at the white mage. "The ship is telling us that we've landed and that the environment is stable for departure," he said. "And also something about security measures for when the ship is vacant."

                Everyone looked at him in surprise.

                "What?" Edge asked.

                "How do you know that?" Rosa seconded.

                Cecil was just as confused, and he shook his head. "I have no idea," he muttered, crossing his arms.

                Rydia looked at Edge who frowned back at her, before she looked again at Cecil. "Cecil, you understand what the voice is saying?"

                There was a look of uncertainty on the paladin's face, a fear of what he didn't comprehend.

                "I might—it's—I suppose it's possible," he answered hesitantly.

                It was Rosa's turn to frown again. "Cecil—if that's the case..."

                "I was summoned here, after all," Cecil quickly rationalized. "Perhaps this ship chooses who it wishes to communicate with."

                They were all silent for a moment as they considered this. 

                "If the ship says it's safe, then maybe we should test that advice. We don't have much time," Edge reminded them briskly, climbing down from the control platform, and leading the way to the place where they'd first entered the ship. He stood there, irritated, as the ship did nothing but ignore his presence.

                Cecil joined him a moment later and then the small teleport chamber opened, revealing the elevator that had lifted them to the bridge in the first place.

                "Typical," Edge grumbled under his breath.

                Rydia and Rosa hurried to catch up, and the four of them stood in the elevator together, watching as the door revolved shut behind them.

                Rydia felt the elevator shift beneath her feet as they were lowered down the side of the ship; and held her breath, not knowing what to expect on the other side. Before long, the opposite door of the elevator swiveled open and the metal gangplank extended down to the lunar surface, exposing them to this new environment and all that lay beyond.

                Rydia hesitantly released the breath she'd been holding, amazed that even on the moon, so far from the earth, there was air to breathe. It took the four of them a moment to collect their bearings before they walked down the ramp—like children testing their legs for the first time—as they cast wary eyes at the landscape around them.

                "Where are we?" Edge asked, glancing at plateaus and craters that stretched out around them for miles.

                Rydia was less concerned with where they were and more by what she saw. She gasped, looking in the opposite direction of everyone else, and seeing something in the distance that glistened like a thousand twinkling crystals. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the brilliant edifice until her eyes adjusted and she made out more of its shape—something palatial in scale and form.

                "I saw that on the map the ship provided," Cecil said, turning in the direction she had pointed.   
"It seems to be the only structure on the moon," he explained.

                "If it's the only structure, why are we so far away?" Edge asked, annoyed.

                Rydia glanced at Cecil, noticing how he clenched his jaw to prevent himself from saying anything sharp in response—though, she too wondered why this was the case.

                "Because the craters and ravines were too steep to set the ship down anywhere else," Cecil brusquely replied, clearly not wishing to discuss it further.

                "We'll have to walk, then," Edge remarked unhappily.

                "But in which direction?" Rosa asked, surveying the place where they'd landed the ship.

                The four of them reached the bottom of the ramp and stood there, puzzled, for a moment. "That way," Cecil suggested, pointing to crystal palace in the distance. "It's the only real lead that we have."

0-0-0-0

                Rydia followed Cecil across the length of the plateau, impressed by how empty the lunar landscape was. There was little variation—no plant life—and no fiends to accost them. In fact, there was nothing but a strange tawny-gray dust that shifted like sand under her feet. That, and a strange low buzzing that had filled her ears. It was a tone that was at once constant as well as easy to ignore, but she wondered as to its source. Was she imagining it?

                Rydia wasn't sure how long or how far they had already walked, but despite the ship having become quite small behind them, the crystal palace didn't seem as though it was getting much closer.

                "The emptiness of this place is skewing our perceptions," Edge groaned at her side, casting his eyes about.

                Rydia glanced at him. "I had thought there would be fiends, at least," she admitted.

                Edge exhaled sharply, obviously irritated. "That's what worries me most," he said. "They're here, we just can't see them."

                "What?" Rydia asked, alarmed, hastily checking the surroundings.

                He grinned at her and she frowned. "Stop doing that!" she scolded, trying to calm her heart.

                His expression became more serious. "They're not here _now,"_ he explained, patronizingly patting the top of her head. "They're keeping their distance."

                Rydia swept his hand away and looked again at the flat plateau around them. "How do you know?"

                "They've been keeping to our blindspot," he said, nodding to their left. "But not well enough."

                Rydia glanced behind them, seeing nothing. Still, she had learned enough about Edge's senses to know that if he said something was there, it must be.

                "By the way," he said after another moment, his brow quirking upwards. "Do you remember anything from being inside that pod?"

                Rydia rubbed her arms with her hands, trying to forget the experience altogether. In truth, she remembered very little. "No," she said. "But it was the deepest sleep I've ever had."

                "No dreams?" Edge fished.

                Rydia frowned, suddenly remembering flashes of things that she couldn't tell were real or imagined.

                "No—but—I'm not sure."

                Edge's eyes met hers, searching for a better answer.

                "It was strange," she admitted, peeling her eyes away. "That crystal palace, this place—it seems familiar to me."

                "You didn't hear any voices, did you?" Edge asked her with another grin.

                She rolled her eyes. "I'm not crazy," she insisted. "I just feel that I've seen this place before."

                He nodded slowly. "That's—interesting," he concluded, mulling over her answer.

                "How long was I asleep, anyway?" she asked curiously.

                He shrugged. "At least five hours," he said, and she could tell he was grinning again.

                "What?" she asked, annoyed.

                "Why did you step inside to begin with?" he asked. "Were you hoping to pilot the ship yourself?"

                She angled one brow out of frustration, having sensed he might try to tease her. "How about you explain something to _me,"_ she said instead.

                He looked at her sidelong. "What is that?" he asked.

                "Why, when you had ample opportunity, didn't you stay behind with Cid and Giott and the others? I thought you said you would rather take your chances with them, than hazard a trip to the moon where nothing was certain? And what did Astrid say to you on our journey to Mysidia? I thought the two of you were fast friends," she shot at him all at once.

                Edge stared back at her, astonished. "That's more than one question," he pointed out.

                She pursed her lips. "I only get to ask one?" she asked archly.

                His expression was bemused. "When you say some _thing_ instead of some _things,_ I take you at your word."

                "I still only get to ask one?" she pressed.

                Edge smiled, exasperated. "Since you're _so_ nosy, Summoner, I'll tell you—the answer to all those questions is the same."

                She frowned at him, wondering what that answer could possibly be.

                He looked back at her in all seriousness. "Someone had to come along and look after you," he told her.

                She missed a step, staring at him incredulously. "Excuse me?" she demanded.

                He smiled wickedly. "Or was I supposed to say that my curiosity out-weighed my duty to my kingdom?"

                "Just about anything else," she coached him, her eyes narrowed. "I refuse to believe that you stayed just to keep me company."

                "That's your choice," he answered with a shrug.

                They both came to a halt when they noticed Cecil had stopped walking at the edge of the plateau.

                "There's no getting past this," Cecil said, distracting them both from their conversation.

                Rydia glanced ahead at where Cecil had stopped. At first, she had thought it was just the beginning of a hill, until she joined him and stood with her toes at the edge of a cliff that dropped steeply into a ravine.

                Edge and Rosa also leaned forward, admiring the sheer drop-off. "We could always climb it," Edge suggested half-heartedly.

                Rosa scoffed. "And then have to climb back out again on the other side?" she said, nodding to the opposite side of the ravine.

                Rydia looked as well, noticing how the ravine's far wall looked too steep to climb. It might be possible for a ninja, perhaps, but not for the rest of them. They would have to find a completely different route altogether.

                "The pitch doesn't seem so bad over there," Cecil said, pointing to their left where the plateau gently curved downward and seemed to skirt the ravine.

                They tested this theory, and walked along the cliff's edge until they arrived at the point where the plateau formed a narrow bridge that had seemed to span the ravine. They soon found their way blocked by pitfalls and terrain that was too perilous to navigate, however, and gave up on the route altogether.

                Edge hopped atop a rise and peered into the distance.

                "Anything?" Cecil asked wearily.

                "There looks like a path was cut between the plateaus," Edge said, squinting. "Not part of any ravine—it's too even—but an actual path. Getting to it is going to be the problem."

                Rydia sighed, already tired of walking.

                 They returned in the direction they'd come; but Edge, walking ahead of the group, steered them away and toward the southern face of the plateau. Here, there was a gradual descent and an easily discernible path that cut its way down the plateau's side and wound its way into a wide valley; though, it was in the opposite direction of where they wanted to be. The valley was surrounded on either side by the cliff of the plateau and the rim of a steep crater, but it didn't have as perilous of footing as the other routes they might have chosen.

                "We're hedged in," Cecil observed, checking both sides for danger.

                "I think we were meant to come this way," Edge remarked from ahead. "But it's a damn good way of warding off unwanted visitors."

                "By making them walk through a bottleneck?" Cecil asked.

                "Makes it easy to get rid of us," Edge admitted, "And, whoever invited us has a twisted sense of humor, knowing we'd have to walk all this way."

                Rydia raised a brow, looking up at the cliffs around them. The path was broad, but at times, winding, and she wanted to know who it was that had requested their presence here, let alone why they hadn't come to meet them.

                From up ahead, Edge suddenly held up his hand for them to stop.

                They all halted, looking around cautiously but saying nothing.

                Rydia's ears were tuned to the moon's silence, but now she noticed that the buzzing from before had increased in volume--becoming harder to ignore. It grew until it became a whine, and Rydia strained her ears, wondering what she should be listening for at all, or whether what she heard was entirely in her imagination.

                Suddenly, she picked up on a strange shuffling noise from ahead, different from the whine in her ears. Not that of feet, but of something...fluid? She pivoted, looking behind them and around. There couldn't be water on the moon, could there?

                But this was more strange—like something thick and viscous; like skin coming unstuck from glue, or mud being sucked out from under a footfall in the rain.

                The sound became louder, reverberating off of the valley walls. The four of them tightened their formation, their backs together.

                "What is that?" Rosa whispered anxiously, holding her bow in her left hand.

                Out from around a bend in the path, slid four peculiar creatures, bobbing and creeping laboriously forward like snails. Rydia recognized the species; or at least, their Earth counterparts, and relaxed a little.

                They were what she had nicknamed "jellies" as a child, and she recalled the ease at which she had disposed of them in her earliest travels with Cecil. A well placed spell and they were all but taken care of.

                She closed her eyes, seeking the aide of Thundaga; a spell she had become more familiar with than her others in recent days. Her tongue shot forth words like angry arrows, but where she had once felt harmony and compliance, she now felt rebellion. The source of her magic felt far away, like throwing a rope a very great distance and then trying to reel in a heavy load with a poor center of balance. She struggled to maintain her spell's cadence, frustration coloring the edge's of her tone and melody, as the buzzing in her ears seemed to drown out the music of her spell. When she finally completed the invocation, the most meager of lightning bolts skittered out of the air, colliding into the creatures and doing nothing but tickle them. Their gelatinous bodies glowed with ire as they prepared to counterattack; and Rydia doubled over—out of breath.

                She could sense everyone's eyes turn toward her in surprise, but there was no time to dwell on it. One flan had quickened its pace and approached them with revenge on its mind. Cecil dodged the long gelatinous arm it sent his way, his sword and shield battering away the rest of its amorphous mass. Every stroke of his sword did nothing but jiggle the creature's bulbous body and deflect his arm, as the four of them spread out to avoid the flailing arms of the angered flan.

                Rydia recognized their predicament, but was too stunned by her magic's failure to be of much help. Magic was the only remedy for these particular fiends, and if she was unable to cast it, they would spend the next hour on the run.

                Another flan had slithered past Cecil's defenses and come for her directly. It hurled out dense globs of gel, and they struck like clods of wet sand—painful and unexpected. Edge pulled her out of the way of its primary attack, a barrage of blows from its ever-twisting limbs. He stabbed the flan, his blade being half absorbed by the creature's body before it was repelled, and he with it.

                "Rydia, are you alright?" Rosa asked, trying to pierce the amorphous creatures with arrows to no avail. The white mage flicked her gaze at Rydia and their eyes met.

                "I'm fine, but—" Rydia said, leaping out of the way of another projectile attack. "My magic isn't heeding me!"

                "How convenient," Edge complained, throwing shurikens into the bodies of the creatures only for them to bounce off again.

                Rydia closed her eyes, putting some distance between herself and the others, and tried again. This time, she called upon fire. She summoned the furnace of the underworld to her command, but what should have been a firestorm of embers and flames, became muddled somewhere between her mind and her tongue, and resulted in a mere spurt of a candle's wick. The whine in her ears had become unbearably loud, drowning out everything else.

                Rydia opened her eyes in time to see Rosa take a heavy hit and buckle, and Cecil lunge forward to defend her with his shield, only to be barraged by the twisting and flailing gels himself.

                At her side, Edge had finally giving up on trying to physically wound the creatures, and briefly closed his eyes, arranging both of his hands into the forms that made up the language unique to his people and their magic. A shower of lightning bolts rained down on the flan, sizzling through them and burning their protective mucous into a dry skin. This slowed them down, but didn't kill them; and Rydia stared at him jealously, wondering why his magic had remained unaffected while she couldn't seem to make a single word obey her. Cecil took the opportunity of the distraction, to strike one of the flans with his sword, sheathed, and used the full length of the sheath as a bat to knock it backwards.

                Edge adjusted his strategy, altering the signs he'd made with his hands—deft and quick—and flame swirled around each fiend like coiled snakes. This finally did the flans in, and they succumbed to Edge's magic, melting  slowly to puddles on the lunar dirt.

                For several minutes no one said anything, catching their breath. Finally, Rosa tended to her own injuries, wincing as she examined the state of her wounds and wove her words into healing spells.

                "What happened?" Edge asked, turning toward Rydia.

                Rydia heard the question as an accusation, and she refused to meet his gaze, staring at the puddles on the ground. "My magic feels...far away," Rydia said, all of a sudden overwhelmed with weakness and a painful headache. Her knees shook, and she collapsed to the ground, clutching her legs for balance. She recognized the fatigue she felt, the same fatigue as when she cast more than she could withstand. It disturbed her—that her magic had failed her in such a way—and especially since the buzzing in her ears had persisted.

                "Mine seems unaffected," Rosa reflected quietly, completing her ministrations and tending to Cecil next.

                Cecil glanced in Rydia's direction, and she felt, rather than saw his gaze.

                "Has your magic ever done this to you before?" he asked.

                She shook her head, wondering if she had spoken the incantations wrong—but no, they were just as she'd learned them.

                "The crystals wouldn't answer me," she admitted.

                This got odd looks from everyone.

                "Wouldn't answer you?" Cecil inquired.

                "I called and they—they wouldn't answer," she repeated, recalling the separation she had felt.

                "And you hadn't noticed it before this?" Cecil asked quietly.

                Rydia shook her head, not comprehending how she was supposed to have known.

                "Rydia, if you feel your abilities diminish, I hope you would tell us," Cecil told her, concerned.

                She nodded, feeling betrayed, and then stood unsteadily; her head making it seem as though the moon was tilted. She didn't notice until a moment later, that Edge was holding her up by the shoulder. His expression was inscrutable. 

                Rydia buried her frustration, resolving to get to the bottom of what had happened later; and once they had all regained their breath and their faculties, they continued.

                With some measure of chagrin, Rydia noticed that Edge had given up his position at the front of the group and kept to her side instead.

                She sighed out of frustration. "You don't have to keep me company," she complained to him.

                He simply glanced at her, unaffected. "Your magic's never done that before," he observed.

                "No," she admitted, wincing.

                "And if I'm honest, combat is not your strong suit."

                Rydia pierced him with an offended glare. "Are you saying I'm helpless without  my magic?" she huffed.

                Edge shrugged. "You're a summoner and a mage, so—yes."

                "You are so lucky right now," she seethed, holding up her hand and pretending to squish him between two fingers. He shook his head, amused.

                The path they traveled became narrower and narrower, until finally it came to an end at another steep crater wall. A cavern burrowed through it, and they paused to wonder if they should venture inside.

                "We either climb or we go beneath," Edge said, inspecting the height of the cliff.

                "It looks like something _made_ this cave," Rosa said, staring at the cave entrance in trepidation.

                Each of them turned their attention to the cave, dreading what might still be inside it.

                "It could also lead us through this crater and closer to our destination," Cecil said.

                "I'm game," Edge answered with a shrug. "It's not like I saved any dignity by coming here in the first place."

                Rydia and Rosa shared an unenthused look.

                "What about Rydia's magic?" Rosa asked, worriedly. "Wouldn't it be better if we weren't stumbling around in the dark without her spells to aid us?"

                Rydia's spirits sank a little, but she knew Rosa had every right to be concerned. What if they encountered more fiends like the flans? What if they had no choice but to resort to magic? Her magic might not be lost entirely, but she certainly wasn't eager to find out.

                "Thanks for that, Rosa," Edge said, clearing his throat.

                Rosa glanced at the ninja and frowned. "You know what I mean," she appealed.

                "She's not the only one on this team with magic," Edge reminded her, annoyed.

                "What about the Eidolons?" Cecil asked Rydia.

                Rydia crossed her arms and sighed. "I'm...afraid to try," she admitted. "Their lives are bound to mine, and if—" she trailed off, trying not to imagine the consequences of a summoning gone awry. "I wouldn't want to place them in danger until I knew exactly why my magic isn't behaving the way it should."

                Cecil pursed his lips, weighing all of their options. "I still think this is our best chance," he said, turning back toward the cave.

                "So let's go," Edge prodded, taking a few steps forward.

                "Rydia?" Rosa asked, noticing how she was firmly rooted in place.

                Rydia shoved her doubts to the back of her mind again, thinking that perhaps her previous failure had only been a fluke. Perhaps her experience on the Lunar Whale had had an unknown affect on her abilities. She smiled weakly back at Rosa. "Someone is waiting for us, after all," she said, finally walking ahead.

                "Stay together," Cecil instructed each of them as they stepped into the darkness of the lunar cave. "There's no telling what fiends the moon has prepared for us."


	28. Lunar Bound Part II

"These fiends--" Edge groaned, tentatively sheathing one blade in a stop and jerk motion that betrayed his exhaustion, "--are a pain in the ass."

                Cecil nodded tiredly, gasping for breath. His armor was flecked with blood and the vitreous humor shed by the creatures that lay dead about them in haphazard piles, as he stooped to his knees to rest.

                The cavern fiends were unlike anything they had encountered—translucent and unexpectedly quick. They propelled themselves with tendril-like appendages, and the four of them had been poisoned, paralyzed, lacerated, and bruised in the time since they'd entered the cave.

                Rydia winced as her fingers trailed over a blistered wound on her arm—the result of a fiendish tentacle seeping acid through her sleeve. The contact sent tears to her eyes, but this latest wound seemed like nothing compared to the others.

                The tentacular creatures were Rydia's least favorite of all the fiends, she'd decided; lashing out with barbed whips that burned like fire on the skin and caused a feverish sickness.

                Rosa was now studying the fluid that had afflicted Cecil, checking his pulse with two fingers on his neck. "The toxin moves quickly," she remarked, looking up at Cecil with concern. "I'm amazed by how easily it weakens the body," she murmured, frowning.

                Cecil winced. "If the double vision was any indication..."

                "Are the rest of you alright?" Rosa asked, giving them a cursory once-over.

                Rydia nodded, weak from exertion; but she knew Edge had hit the ground harder than he was letting on. She glanced at him pointedly, and he narrowed his eyes back at her. His predilection for walking off injuries was all well and good, but her self-supposed guardian was beginning to look rather rough around the edges.

                "Might be a rib," Edge finally admitted through gritted teeth.

                Rosa nodded back at him, focusing on Cecil first. "I have to leech the poison from your body," she informed him, giving Cecil a wry smile. Rydia knew it was not a painless experience, as she'd had the poison eradicated from her own body with much resistance to Rosa's magic. Cecil only nodded, expecting this.

                Rosa closed her eyes and began chanting. Poisona took form, causing the residue that had found its way to Cecil's skin to glow. Wherever the glow spread, so too did the magic, seeping through skin and vein, binding itself to the toxin and causing a brief but searing fever before eradicating the poison and its illness from his body. Rydia watched with fascination, wondering how Rosa's spells could still achieve their intended purpose while hers had been ungainly and uncooperative.

                Cecil slowly stood, stretching his neck, and Rosa walked to Edge next. She clicked her tongue as she glanced over him. "You really shouldn't have done that," she scolded him, referring to their last encounter, before casting Libra to determine the extent of his injuries.

                "The rest of you were too slow," he retorted, forbearing Rosa's examination.

                Once her spell had been completed, she sighed again. "Two broken ribs," she announced unsurprised. There was a stitch in her brow out of frustration, however, knowing it was an injury that required her skill to heal.

                Edge made an unappreciative face at Rydia as Rosa began another incantation. He grimaced twice as each bone was set and fused by magic, but then relaxed as the rest of Rosa's spell repaired the damage to the surrounding tissue.

                "We can't keep doing this," Rosa lamented upon completion of her work. "I can't keep all of you whole indefinitely."

                Cecil looked the group over, staring at Rydia particularly. He knew what her magic's absence had done to her mood "It can't be much longer," he assured them. "The crater walls can't possibly span more than a mile."

                Rydia rested her hands on her hips, staring at the ground. For all her attempts, not a single spell had answered her. They had been more nuisance than anything, and she now had a throbbing headache as a result.

                "Still nothing, Rydia?" Cecil asked her quietly.

                She shook her head with a tightlipped frown, trying to ignore the buzzing that had returned to her ears.              

                Their gaze held for only a moment before they each looked away. Whatever thoughts Cecil had on the subject he kept to himself.

                "We should keep going," Cecil said, sheathing his sword.

                None of them were enthusiastic about the prospect, but they had now gone too far to go back. Cecil led them onward, proving the journey to be shorter than they had feared, and Rydia was relieved to see light again.

                They were deposited into another path that was crowded by steep crater walls and the northern face of the plateau. The fiends that had plagued them with illness and paralysis, had been replaced by fiends of a more explosive nature here. Grenades floated lazily between the rocks and boulders that littered the lunar pathway, slipping in and out of view. Cecil avoided them whenever possible, but there were times when avoidance was not an option. Cecil and Edge strove to make quick work of the fiends before the gases contained within them ignited.

                Rydia began to chant automatically—hoping to cast the infectious Bio and slow down their enemies with disease—but she had forgotten her present limitations, and even this one spell sapped her of strength. She spent the next several minutes gasping while the men finished off the creatures; and even afterwards, was fighting off fatigue as the four of them limped along the pathway. Their morale had fallen and there was a half-heartedness to their actions, bringing them to pause and rest at more frequent intervals.

                Rydia sat down on one such occasion and cradled her head in her hands.

                "It's getting worse," Edge said, and she tiredly peeked up to see him standing in front of her.

                She groaned and closed her eyes again, sensing he had stooped down to a crouch beside her. "What do you mean?" she asked evasively.

                "Your head," he stated.

                She frowned. "It's this...pounding that I can't ignore," she complained. "It's a headache that won't go away."    

                "I know," he admitted, surprising her.

                "You know?" she scoffed.

                "There's pressure in the air—intense magic," he answered.

                She lifted her head up a little higher, having thought her headache was a side effect of her failed spells. She _had_  wondered why her headache and the strange buzzing in her ears were only getting worse and not better. "You feel it too?" she wondered.

                "The headache, no, but magic this strong?" he asked. "Who wouldn't?"

                "Why didn't you say anything to Cecil and Rosa?" she hissed.

                The look he gave her was exasperated. "And have them question all of _my_ actions as well?"

                Rydia thought it over for a moment, then frowned. "Why haven't you been as affected as me?"

                He shrugged. "I can sense magic in the environment, but I don't draw my power from it. You draw yours from the crystals and the closest crystals are in Babil. Perhaps something here is interfering with your senses."

                Rydia crossed her arms and looked toward Cecil and Rosa who were chatting nearby.

                "Except that Cecil and Rosa sense nothing," she mused. "But there _is_ something else—something sleeping here on the moon," she revealed. "An Eidolon."

                Edge regarded her sharply. "An Eidolon—here?" he asked.

                Rydia was surprised by his brusqueness. "Yes, an Eidolon," she repeated.

                "Do they live in your head or something?" Edge asked.

                "Yes. Like your delusions," she answered with a roll of the eyes.

                He grinned, and she sighed. "I was told one lived on the moon," she explained. "But I didn't expect—if this is his presence, I didn't expect it to be so—"

                "--So?"

                "Overbearing," she concluded.

                Edge studied her for another long moment. "That still doesn't explain this," he pointed out.

                She glanced at him. "What?"

                "Your magic consuming more of your strength than normal. Your constant fatigue."

                Rydia felt the need to be contrary. "If you don't draw your power from the crystals, where exactly do you draw it?" she countered.

                He appeared surprised, but remained tight lipped on the topic.

                "I thought so," she retorted. "So why should I tell you anything?"

                "I'm tired of glancing over to see you wincing," he answered flatly.

                Rydia sighed, realizing she might have overreacted. "It's almost as though...the melody that I'm listening for—" she told him uneasily, and then paused. She frowned, wondering how else to explain it. "It's as if another person is shouting over me, drowning out my words. I can't shut it out."

                To his credit, Edge hadn't started laughing at her strange rationalization. Instead, he was looking back at her, intrigued.

                "Do you think I'm mad?" she asked sheepishly.

                "At me? Always," he replied with a quick smile.

                She rolled her eyes, and he regarded her more seriously the second time. "No," he told her honestly. "Not mad."

                Rydia propped her chin up with her hands, staring over Edge's shoulder. "I wish I could understand why this is happening."

                Edge frowned. "Have you tried listening to the other voice?" he asked.

                Rydia blinked, looking back at him. "I always thought it was never a good idea to listen to the voices in your head—especially when they weren't your own."

                Edge offered her a wry smile. "It's never too early to try."

                She snorted, finding his attitude inappropriate to the situation. "To go insane?" she asked. "You're only asking me this because you want me to admit that I should have stayed behind," she said.

                 "It would be a small victory at this point," he admitted with a long suffering sigh. "I gave up on that hours ago."

                She rolled her eyes at him again. "I'm still glad that I'm here," she said defiantly, "Despite what you may think."

                Edge remained dubious on that account. "Let me know when you start seeing things that you shouldn't."

                She stared at him, then tilted her head with a puzzled expression. "I'm seeing one right now," she told him smartly.

                He grinned, then nodded as he stood to leave. "Fair enough."

 

 

0-0-0-0-0

                "I'm worried about her," Rosa told Edge later.

                "I thought this was a perpetual issue." Edge remarked, disinterestedly.

                "I've known her since she was a child," Rosa continued anyway. "Her magic has never done this to her before—her confidence hasn't been this rattled since…"

                "Since?" Edge inquired, finally curious.

                "Since Mount Hobbs."

                Edge raised his brows at the mage, having heard this story before, but wondering if Rosa was going to divulge more on the topic.

                "I asked it of her," Rosa revealed with a sigh. "We needed her magic. She was just a slip of a thing—scared, nervous—but she cast fire when we needed her."

                "You think she's scared again," Edge ventured.

                " _I_ am. I'd hazard a guess that we all are." Rosa said.

                "We never knew what we'd find once we got here," Edge answered, leading the mage. "But we can't rely on her for everything."

                "Losing her magic in this critical stage, has…had unexpected consequences," Rosa explained quietly. "I never anticipated traveling this strange land without her power. We're barely treading water."

                "She'll sort it out," Edge answered instantly. "She always does."

                Rosa stared at him out of the corner of her eye, appearing pained. "She's become…close to you," she admitted.

                "Oh?" Edge asked sharply. "As close as one might be to a feral cat, maybe."

                Rosa frowned at him, but there was a spark of triumph in her eyes at the remark. "She sees a kindred spirit in you, I think," she went on, despite herself.

                Edge glanced at her, waiting for her to continue.

                "For better or worse, she's in your confidence. Look after her," Rosa entreated him.

                He nodded, as he'd never had any intention of doing otherwise, and watched her walk away, appeased.

                Rosa sidled close to Cecil, taking his arm and whispering something quietly to him. The paladin nodded, and Edge watched them for a moment. The two of them had been very much in each other's confidence since Mysidia. Rosa's stand in Baron's tombs had evidently taken Cecil by surprise, and he had taken great care to keep her close ever since. Edge smiled, looking away. Clever woman.

                Rydia, on the other hand, had become more distant. She had taken a moment to be by herself during their most recent respite, but now returned to the group, looking tired.

                Cecil deemed it time to move on, and Edge briefly took time to count the shurikens he kept in the pouch at his hip. Not many, he noticed, deciding this was a problem. There were advantages to long-range combat in the absence of magic, and his bag of tricks was beginning to run dry. He hoped Rydia sorted everything out before their situation became more desperate than it already was. 

                Edge glanced at her and saw the perplexed expression on her face. She hadn't spoken much in the last few hours, and he stayed nearby, gladly doing as Rosa had asked. He grinned privately, thinking the request itself odd. The white mage had been against him from the outset, always skeptical of his intentions, and now she was going against her better judgment to foster their closeness. Things must _really_ have become desperate for her to ask such a favor.

                He looked away before Rydia could suspect him of staring, and thought again about his intentions.

                Astrid, damn her, had mentioned them on the Falcon. What _were_ his thoughts on the woman beside him? He'd thought he was casual, aloof—safe. Apparently not.     

                And then Astrid had to go and bring sentiment into the equation. He wasn't smitten. That would mean that Rydia, unlike the many women whose company he had enjoyed in the past, had actually made an impression on him…  

                A bend in the path presented an unexpected problem, and Edge swiftly left Rydia's side to join Cecil at the front of the group. A gaggle of flans had appeared, and without their black mage to assist them, Edge's own expertise was required.

                He was thankful for the distraction. The opportunity for violence had a tendency to improve his mood, but as he drew abreast of Cecil, his mind idly wondered whether Rydia would appreciate lightning followed by fire, or if she preferred water instead….

                And then he scowled at himself for thinking to impress her at all.    

                The flans took notice of the four humans, and bobbed to and fro excitedly, thinking they had found an easy meal.

                Edge stepped forward, and moved through signs and gestures with expert speed, his fingers operating by memory. Some had a tendency to execute ninjutsu with flamboyance and grand gestures. Edge had no time for such flourishes, preferring speed and control over showmanship. Admittedly, he did know how impressive a figure he made as he cast his magic—calm, fluid, controlled. He felt power flow through him as naturally as his own blood coursed through his veins, unimpeded by the moon's influence. There was an extra-sensory awareness that always accompanied the instances when he tapped into his own magic, the part of his spirit that beat like a second heart; and he enjoyed the rush it provided. The flans were decimated by one spell artfully followed by another, and Edge released his magic with a mental shrug, severing the immediate connection and allowing his energy to ebb to the back of his mind.

                Rydia was staring at him jealously as the four of them continued on. He never would have given her feelings much consideration weeks ago; but he realized, chagrined, that her feelings and opinions mattered to him now. How she regarded him _mattered_.

                …He was an ass.

                He gave up on trying to figure out how to help her when another cavern entrance loomed before them. This one seemed to burrow in the direction of the crystal palace—a positive sign—and they made the odious choice to enter it, having an idea of what to expect.

                Edge returned to Rydia's side, his eyes searching the dim cavern environs. A flash of light caused him to blink, as Rosa's Sight spell faded to a silvery gleam, coating the rocks with a residual glow.

                The light revealed fiends in crevices, and weapons were drawn without thought, without preamble.

                Cecil kept his shield raised high, defending the mages and allowing Edge the time to circle around. Edge corralled the fiends, pre-empting them, and made sport of severing their tendril-like appendages before they could be used to poison and infect the others. Cecil's efforts were more brusque than elegant—heavy blows that struck the fiends through their jelly-like, virile bodies. Between the two of them, the paralytic fiends were systematically slaughtered. Edge's twin katanas sliced neatly through the body of the last fiend standing, and with the fiends dispatched, the four of them took a moment to regroup.

                A subtle vibration in the cavern floor, however, caused Edge to stand completely still; glancing at the others with concern.

                "What is it?" Rosa asked, noting Edge's rigid posture.

                He slowly shook his head, tilting his ear closer to the ground so that he could better listen to the disturbance. The vibration grew in magnitude, until the cavern floor began to rumble ominously.

                "What is that?" Rydia asked, staring worriedly at her feet.

                "Not sure," Edge answered, walking away from the others as his eyes searched for clues. "There's something beneath us."

                "We shouldn't stay here," Cecil suggested briskly, sheathing his sword and taking off at a run with his shield still affixed to his arm.

                The others didn't question his logic, following quickly on his heels. They ran down a corridor opposite the one they had just been in, rounding a bend as the sound of rock being burrowed out of broke the silence of the cavern. The creature that had emerged sounded enormous, like a giant mole scraping its way out of the ground, and their pace quickened as  a peculiar bellow sounded out behind them. They hurried across one chamber and then another, hoping to avoid an encounter with the cave dweller behind them, and entered a narrower stretch of passage—a corridor of sorts.

                "Get down!" Cecil suddenly shouted, ducking as a Grenade flew overhead. The spikes on its body were raised in anger, and it appeared agitated, wounded.

                The four of them threw themselves to the ground as the Grenade made several low swoops, trying to pierce them with its protruding spines.

                Edge's swords were drawn in an instant, while Cecil's shield kept the fiend at bay.

                "There's something different about this one," Edge complained, sweeping his sword in a vertical arc, only glancing the creature's hide.

                "You missed!" Cecil shouted, standing up to strike the creature on its return. Flames had now ignited on its body, and Rydia knew it was only a matter of minutes before the flames ignited the gases within the creature.

                Rosa fired an arrow, striking the Grenade between its coal black eyes.

                And that set it off.

                The explosion flashed brilliant blue and green, and the concussion threw Rydia from her feet,  hard spines embedding into her arms and left shoulder. She cried out when she hit the ground, feeling the pull on wounded flesh and the aggravation of old bruises. There was an ominous crack overhead, hairline fissures spreading like spider webs across the cavern ceiling by the time Rydia opened her eyes and realized what was happening. She climbed to her feet and sprinted back as dust began to pour down from above, and noticed suddenly how strangely she had been positioned from the group—three on one side, and herself on the other. Stones began to skitter to the cavern floor followed by larger rocks, and she panicked, bolting backwards as a section of the ceiling crumbled; bringing part of the plateau down into the passage. 

                "Rydia!" Cecil called out, as she slipped into a crevice in the passage wall, hoping to avoid being pinned beneath the falling debris.

                His voice was buried by the cacophony of the cave-in. The entire passage quaked and reverberated, and large boulders rolled and tumbled past. Rydia covered her ears, waiting until the rumbling settled and the rocks eased to a stop before peeking her head out of her hiding place to take stock of the situation. Dust was everywhere, clinging to her eyelashes, and she choked on it trying to breathe.

                "Cecil?" she called out.

                She waited a few minutes, straining her ears, but no answer came.

                Rydia approached the fallen rocks, pushing at them to see if any could be moved. And then she felt a wave of disorienting anxiety pass over her. She was separated from the group—alone, and without magic. She was no match for the fiends in the caverns on her own. She had no healing skills, and she didn't dare to summon the Eidolons to her here in her present state.

                She squinted through the gloom while tears pricked her eyes. The spines embedded into her arms were weeping blood and she winced as she gingerly plucked them out and threw them on the ground where they landed with a clatter. Defeated, she crouched at the base of the rock fall—pain mingling with thoughts. The buzzing in her ears had now grown to a roar, and she winced again, convincing herself it was sound lingering from the explosion. But this was different than before. It felt as though a conversation was chattering through her mind; words being exchanged, and herself, an unwilling bystander. She blinked, frowned, and shook her head, having trouble distinguishing which thoughts were her own and which were not.

                _Listen._

                She slowed her breathing, trying to lay things out and then piece them back together. She had to control her emotions, and Edge's earlier advice returned to her now. Why should she listen to the strange voices of the moon, and allow what might only be madness into her mind?

                She opened her eyes and stared at the path behind her. There was an unknown creature waiting for her in that direction, but she had no way forward. The thought of being trapped here was suddenly very real.

                She stood again, slowly, hesitantly, walking along the blockage and thinking. She had one spell—one that could crumble the barrier before her to dust. But at what cost? What if the rest of the plateau fell down around her? As she thought this, a brief hum brushed against her mind. It was a faint assurance, and Rydia nearly jumped, surprised by the close contact.

                "Get out of my head!" she shouted, and then reddened, remembering she was alone.

                Rydia tossed her green hair, dusty though it was, and again considered the blocked cavern passage with her hands on her hips.

                Quake. The elemental spell that had eluded her before. The spell that had already been unwieldy before her magic had decided to go haywire. Did she dare to beg its cooperation now…

                Dread settled onto her shoulders, just as a song drifted across her mind. It was a melody very much like the ones she sang with every spell—a definite cadence and rhythm. She paused to listen to it, noticing phrases and refrains that were at once familiar and not. Was this the same spell? It was and was not. She felt like she was listening to magic with a fresh pair of ears. She listened more carefully, allowing this new song to paint an image with her thoughts, the shape of what she desired to do—and the spell came into focus.

                She closed her eyes and latched onto the song, allowing her lips to move in accordance with the words supplied.

                Magic to move stone. Magic to manipulate and to shape the earth. Magic to push and pull, to build and to flatten. The foundation of worlds. The song was simple, concise. The weight of it was not a burden too great to bear, to tame, or control, and she could see the spell clearer than she'd ever seen it before. All that was required was one good push—one precise application of force. She could easily tell which rocks were load bearing and which were simply stubbornly piled.

                Rydia completed the incantation, sensing that the source from which she was drawing her power was far closer, far older than the crystals of earth. The power surged through her, overwhelmingly intimate, and sent boulders toppling out of the center of the blockade, creating a gap wide enough to climb over and through.

                The spell's power fled her body, falling through her feet and into the stone beneath her. She stood unsteadily, but not fatigued. On the contrary, she felt a rush of energy.

                "Rydia!" Rosa's anxious voice cried out through the opened passage.

                The white mage's voice returned Rydia to the present. She blinked twice and climbed forward through the opening. Once on the other side, Rosa's hands gripped her soundly at the shoulders.

                "Rydia," the other woman said, staring at her intently.

                Their eyes met, and Rydia sensed Rosa recoil from her briefly, as if surprised by something she saw. Then, Rosa _did_ step away, holding out hands covered in Rydia's blood. 

                Only then did Rydia's energy fail her, and she crumpled to her knees. Rosa's soft voice was chanting without having to be told anything else, and Cecil was holding her upright, she realized. She opened her eyes sleepily, and noticed the extreme concern on Cecil's face.

                "Twice in two days, Rydia," Cecil told her wryly.

                She grinned, shrugging. "I know."

                Edge was studying the blockage behind them, and glanced down at her curiously after a moment. "How did you do that without collapsing the cave?" he asked.

                Once Rosa's ministrations were completed, Rydia took a moment to look back at the rocks herself. "I was—" she began, remembering how the spell had come to be. "The invocation was given to me," she went on hesitantly.  

                Edge appeared at once skeptical and impressed. "Was given to you?" he asked.

                "It made sense to me," she elaborated. "I was finally able to focus on the words I required."

                She wasn't ready to admit that she had been hearing voices, let alone that she had listened to them, but something in Edge's gaze told her he had suspected as much.

                "You have your magic again?" Rosa asked.

                Rydia furrowed her brow as she wondered the same thing. "I have one spell at least," she said. "As for the others—I think I know what to do."

                "Why are they answering now, but not before?" Rosa wanted to know.

                Rydia looked up at the white mage reluctantly. "I think—there are crystals here."

                "Crystals?" Cecil asked, puzzled. "More of them?"

                Rydia nodded. "These feel older, almost…sentient."

                This earned an arched look from everyone.

                "Sentient?" Rosa asked.

                Rydia felt her cheeks begin to redden as she realized how strange it must sound. "It's not something I can easily explain."

                "How could you tell which crystals' power you were beseeching?" Rosa continued, perplexed.

                "They—" Rydia paused. "They beseeched _me,"_ she realized.

                No one spoke for several long minutes, each looking at one another.

                "However it was done, I'm glad your magic has been returned to you," Cecil said at last. "But if there are crystals on the moon, I wonder what their purpose serves, or if it's even safe to use their power."

                "They're probably the same as ours," Edge added, unbothered. "It would only make sense given that the tower shares a connection with this place. Why not have two sets of crystals?"

                "Rydia, the crystals _spoke_ to you?" Rosa prodded.

                "Not spoke so much as supplied the melody I was looking for," Rydia answered. "I think it was the crystals here that were causing my headache."

                "And I haven't sensed a thing," Rosa mused.

                "Do you feel well enough to move on?" Cecil asked Rydia quietly.

                Rydia nodded, standing up again. With a wave of relief, she discovered that the buzzing in her ears was finally absent. Had its purpose been to draw her attention in the first place? 

                Cecil led them away from the blocked passage, and Rydia followed a little more slowly. There were a number of thoughts on her mind. Thoughts on magic and of the crystals.

                Ramuh had always scolded her for inventing her own spells, for following instinct and not form. She frowned now, thinking that she had abandoned his teachings, and reverted to old habits. The spell she had just cast was not like the spell she had learned, but they were somehow one and the same. And yet, they were _different_ somehow.  

                "What song is that?" Edge asked after a while, interrupting her musings.

                "What?" she asked, looking at him in surprise and wondering if he was reading her mind.

                "That song you're humming," he repeated.

                Rydia thought about it, stepping over rocks and uneven ground. "I don't know," she admitted with another frown. She hadn't realized she had been humming, and now she couldn't remember the tune while she was thinking of it.

                He gave her a strange look.

                She caught his eye and sighed exasperatedly. "You aren't honestly suggesting—"

                He shrugged. "You were in that pod for several hours," he said. "You admitted that these environs were familiar to you, and you've been humming that song since you blasted your way through the cave in."

                "You think the ship did something to my mind?" she wanted to know.

                "I'm only trying to help you figure this out," he replied.

                She narrowed her eyes at him. "By planting suggestions in my head that I might actually be insane. You really _did_  want me to stay behind on the planet, didn't you?"

                His expression was inscrutable. "We're both here now, aren't we?" he said before receiving another cue from Cecil to join him at the front.

                Rydia watched him leave her behind, puzzled that he was the one who kept asking her these questions. She sighed, watching him scout ahead. The cavern fiends had a tendency to lurk within the nooks and crevices, but Edge, she'd noticed, had a knack for sensing where they were. How marvelous it must be, she thought, to have magic that was never affected by anything but emotions.

                She hung back with Rosa, annoyed. Was it possible that being connected to the ship had had some effect on her mind, had attuned her to these crystals? Was it magic she was singing?

                "Rosa, has your magic really been no different than before?" Rydia asked while Rosa readied her bow.

                The white mage shook her head. "Not really," Rosa answered distractedly. "But my magic has never been at the mercy of any one crystal. Some resistance, I admit, but nothing to affect the efficacy of my work."

                Rydia considered this, having forgotten the intricacy of white magic's invocations as she uncoiled her whip and felt the familiar feel of braided leather in her palm. Rosa's magic relied on subtlety and cross-discipline. No wonder Leviathan had told her to abandon the pursuit of it—as it was an art that also consumed a considerable amount of time to master. It made sense then, that there had been no discord when Rosa sought out the crystals. They were already twined in the Tower of Babil—their power in unison. There was no need to separate them, as Rydia's spells required.

                The four of them fought their way through the cavern, their hands rarely leaving their weapons, and after a while, Rydia put her thoughts aside to focus on more simple tasks. Walking and fighting had become automatic and interchangeable, and it was with no small amount of effort, that they eventually climbed out of the cavern and into the confines of another ravine. This one was much wider than the last, and the crystalline palace loomed in the distance, glittering with starlight it caught and amplified.

                They approached, not fully appreciating its scale until they were standing right before it. It rose hundreds of feet, spires twisting toward the sky—a mineral formation perfected into art.

                They paused, relieved to have finally arrived, and walked up its stairs toward the entrance. The doors swung open before them, behemoths on hinges that made no sound.

                Rydia glanced inside, half-expecting something foul to be guarding the entrance, but all that greeted  them was a hallway with a high vaulted ceiling that ting'd with the sound of crystals striking each other like chimes.

                A current of color pulsed through the fractal walls, like vessels pumping blood through a body.

                "Come," a voice beckoned them from the room beyond.

                Everyone looked up at the sound, eyeing each other to be sure it had been real and not imagined. It was the first time they had heard a human voice since landing on the moon.

                They walked into the adjacent room. It was a room very much like a crystal chamber on the Earth. The walls were panels of glass—or something crystalline—and they bounced light from a dais in the center of the chamber.

                "A crystal dais?" Cecil asked.

                "But there's nothing on it," Rosa observed with a frown.

                A beam of light from the ceiling surprised the four of them, making them take a step back and their hands fly to their weapons.

                "Peace, peace," a voice called to them.

                They remained rooted in place, their hands still at the hilts of their weapons, when the light converged into a form, and finally, a man.

                Rydia had to blink a few times to clear her vision, and when her eyes had adjusted, she saw an elderly man with pale blue robes and snow white hair that trailed to his waist. His eyes were a lavender hue, and they seemed to pierce her like a falcon's from halfway across the room.

                "At last, you’ve arrived," he said, taking their measure.

                Cecil squinted at the man, and took a few hesitant steps forward. "Who are you?" he called out.

                The strange man smiled and it dimpled his cheeks. "I am FuSoYa," he answered in their own language, but with a strange accent. "And I am charged with guarding the slumber of the Lunarians."

                "Lunarians?" Rosa asked, puzzled.

                FuSoYa turned his sharp gaze upon the white mage. "Yes," he answered pragmatically. "We, the people of the moon. Long ago, the world that lay between the Red Planet  and the Great Behemoth stood at the verge of destruction, both terrible and complete. The last survivors of that devastation boarded a ship and escaped to the Blue Planet."

                This made them all pause, searching silently for answers. "Blue planet?" Cecil finally asked.

                "The one that you call home," FuSoYa said simply.  "But your planet was still in the midst of its evolution. And so those travelers created a second moon for the planet, and there they settled into a long and quiet slumber," he revealed, holding his hands wide to indicate the chamber they were standing in and a great deal beyond.

                "And they’re the ones you called the Lunarians," Edge confirmed, looking dubious about the entire tale.

                "Indeed. But there was one among us who was loath to sleep," FuSoYa continued. "He thought it fit that we should simply raze all existing life on the Blue Planet, and claim it as our own."

                "That’s horrible," Rydia gasped, unable to comprehend such terror on a grand scale.

                "Yes," he admitted, descending the dais steps. "And so I used my powers to force him into hibernation with the others. But as he slept, his will grew stronger and took on a consciousness all its own. It reached out to men with tainted hearts on your planet, twisting them into beings yet darker still. And through them, he began to gather the Crystals.

                "He was manipulating Golbez," Cecil realized, to which FuSoYa nodded.

                "Does this person have a name?" Edge asked.

                "His name is Zemus," came the solemn answer. "The Crystals function as a source of energy, you see. I fear he has gathered them in order to activate the interdimensional elevator within the Tower of Babil. With it, he will be able to transport the Giant of Babil to your planet and use it to extinguish all life there."

                "He can do such a thing?" Rosa murmured, crossing her arms.

                Rydia was trying to follow the conversation as best she could, but it all seemed too strange for her—much like everything else she had seen and heard in the last few hours. A man who wanted to destroy all life on their world; a man who would not sleep and could control others with his mind; a man who wanted to activate a device that functioned in a way she didn't understand.

                "But do not be mistaken," FuSoYa went on. "His will is not that of all we Lunarians. The rest of us have been waiting quietly for your planet’s people to progress to such a point that we might treat with one another as equals. We but wait and sleep, dreaming of that day."

                Cecil remained perplexed. "And the lunar whale, where did it come from?"

                FuSoYa smiled. "Ah, the ship…" he mused. "My younger brother Kluya built that vessel long ago and flew it to the blue planet. He took with him several of our secrets, such as the ones employed in your Devil’s Road and in airships—a gift to your people. Kluya was fascinated by your planet and wished to know more of it."

                The elderly man trailed off until he came to stand at Cecil's side. "His final voyage there, he fell in love with a woman of your planet. He never returned here, choosing to stay with her and her people. She later bore him two children."

                 At this, he flicked his wise gaze upon Cecil who frowned under the other man's scrutiny. "One of them was you."

                There was silence for a tense moment as everyone turned to Cecil in disbelief. " _What?"_   Cecil demanded, taking a step back from the man he had just learned was his uncle. " _Me?"_ he repeated. "Then, that voice I heard at Mount Ordeals—was the spirit of my father?"

                "Indeed…you are the very image of Kluya in his youth," FuSoYa remarked with a sad smile.

                "So it _was_ my father!" Cecil said, amazed, and a little more than concerned.

                "He vested you with his power so that you might prevent Zemus’ plot from coming to fruition. Undoubtedly, it was the last act he accomplished before succumbing to the final rest. He was in sharp disagreement with Zemus and his plans, and believed he must be stopped. Kluya would not have imparted his strength to you if he did not think you worthy of the task. For your planet’s sake, and for that of my people as well, we must hurry to the Tower of Babil near Eblan."

                Edge frowned disapprovingly at the mention of his kingdom. "The Tower?" he asked. "It’s protected by some kind of barrier now--there’s no way in."

                FuSoYa glanced at the prince for the first time. "I should be able to bypass the barrier," he answered briskly, almost annoyed. "We must not let the Giant of Babil be unleashed upon your world."

                "We?" Cecil inquired, staring at the Lunarian incredulously.

                "Yes, of course," FuSoYa immediately replied. "Who else did you think had called you here, and who else did you think would be deactivating the tower's defenses in order to stop such a calamity?"

                "We hardly know this man," Edge warned Cecil, unflinching in the face of FuSoYa's glare.

                Cecil released a slow breath. "You were the one who summoned me here?" he asked.

                FuSoYa appeared bored by the question. "There is but one who would beckon you here and that person is myself. I am the guardian of this vessel and of the sleepers here."

                "How do you know of Eblan?" Edge snapped. "Why do you know so much of the tower?"

                FuSoYa glanced at the prince, equally bored. "I am an observer. Surely, you didn't think that I had paid your planet no heed in the time of my people's great rest? The rise and fall of nations has not gone unnoticed, nor has this most recent plot to gather the crystals into one place—the Tower. How were we to know when we might treat with you if no one was watching your progress?"

                Rydia shivered, to know that they had been watched all this time.

                "Why didn't you intervene sooner?" Cecil asked.

                "The Lunar Whale was landlocked and required one of Lunarian blood to activate its controls. I required your assistance to bring the vessel forth so that I might return with you to the planet."

                "You used us," Edge pieced together succinctly.

                "Would you rather I had left you to die?" FuSoYa wondered.

                "If you have the ability to communicate with people on the planet, why can't you also deactivate the tower remotely?" Edge pressed.

                FuSoYa smirked in a condescending way. "Projecting thoughts and transporting one's physical being are two completely separate affairs. No, I might have deactivated the tower's defenses had the arrays that controlled them not been sabotaged and damaged in such a way that only direct access to the tower would yield results."

                "But you can deactivate the shields?" Cecil wanted to know.

                "I should be able to, yes, but I can't do that by standing here."

                "How do we know you aren't Zemus?" Edge asked instead, barring the man's path from the room.

                "You are a suspicious person," FuSoYa mused. "An admirable trait, I suspect, were it not for how little time we possess for this task."

                "How would we know whether you are who you claim to be, or whether you are Zemus himself, hoping to find a way to the planet?"

                "He's a sociopath, not a fool," FuSoYa answered briskly. "Who would place themselves in the path of danger when the destruction could be watched from afar?"

                "Edge," Rosa interrupted, affording him a pointed look.

                "Why didn't my father remain here to sleep with the others?" Cecil suddenly asked, causing everyone to look at him.

                "Your father was a man of study," FuSoYa explained patiently. "Who believed that to understand another culture, one had to be immersed in it. I...disagreed with him on this point on account of our physiology. I feared he might be recognized for what he was and thrown into the path of great harm."

                "But he went to the planet anyway," Cecil pressed.

                "Yes. Several times. I had not thought that his last journey would indeed be his last," FuSoYa told them, his face registering a soft sort of resignation.

                He walked closer to Cecil and rested his hand on the paladin's shoulder. "You are his legacy now," he said. "With your help, I will save the people he so came to love."

                Rosa was looking at the two of them in bewilderment. "What do we do once the tower has been deactivated?" she asked.

                "We figure that out as we go," FuSoYa informed them, leading the four of them from the larger chamber and back to the foyer. "But first, your bodies have sustained injuries and must be repaired before we can return to the lunar passages. I'm afraid the specimens that dwell on the surface of this moon have adapted for the sake of their own survival. They must have given you considerable trouble on your way here."

                Rydia caught Edge's eye, seeing the look of annoyance there, but was too baffled by this Lunarian to pay the ninja much notice.

                FuSoYa was striding surprisingly quick for a man of his age, and the four of them were brought to a chamber that was narrow but possessed a high ceiling. There was nothing in the chamber save for a pedestal in the center of the floor, slightly raised. FuSoYa beckoned them toward it.

                "Please," he said. "It is but a small offering for having brought you through such perils."

                The four of them stared at the pedestal, unsure of his intent.

                "What are you asking us to do?" Cecil asked at last.

                "This device will heal your injuries," FuSoYa explained. "All you must do is stand upon it."

                The group silently nominated Cecil to attempt the device first, and he did so, only to be enveloped by a beam of light. Streams of symbols circled him, relaying information of some kind, before retreating into the glass tile beneath Cecil's feet and the beam of light with it. Cecil stepped off of the pedestal appearing shocked but unharmed and nodded to the others.

                The others each took a turn, and finally Rydia stepped onto the tile. When the beam encircled her, she felt time reversing. Filaments of light spun a cocoon around her, infusing her muscles and bones with strength.

                "What is this magic?" she asked, stepping off of the device, sufficiently healed. "It feels like—the effects of elixir."

                "Our scientists were able to create a field that stimulates..." FuSoYa trailed off when he noticed the glassy eyes that greeted his explanation. "No matter," he said. "Suffice it to say that we have long found a way to heal the body of many ailments. Fortunately your physiology is similar enough to ours to be compatible with the technology."

                "Pardon my asking," Rosa mentioned. "But I am a healer and have never seen magic such as this."

                "Magic," he scoffed as if bemused by the term. "With time, perhaps, you might," FuSoYa told her instead.

                "You said physiology—how precisely are your people different from ours?" Rosa asked again. 

                "That remains entirely to be seen," he answered enigmatically. "But each Lunarian shares a certain...bond, if you will. I believe your people might call it a connection of the mind. We are able to share our thoughts."

                "Like telepathy," Edge supplied.

                FuSoYa glanced at the prince unappreciatively. "In a fashion, yes. We are also more compatible with the crystals, and our technology  is well beyond yours, including our knowledge of healing."

                "Elitist bastard," Edge muttered under his breath loud enough for only Rydia to hear. She looked at him sharply. 

                "Did your people ever share this technology with ours?" Rosa asked.

                FuSoYa looked at the mage, sizing her up. "It was my brother's desire that your people benefit from our knowledge. He believed that if our two cultures were to co-exist, that there needed to be an exchange of ideas."

                "An exchange?" Rosa inquired. "What could we possibly offer you?"

                FuSoYa paused, looking away. "That is a question with many answers. I'm afraid now is not the time to explore them."

                Rosa looked at Cecil and then back at FuSoYa, as if trying to decipher how the two could possibly be related.

                As they  were led out of the crystal palace and returned to the lunar landscape, FuSoYa paused, then grimaced. Turning around, his eyes sought out Rydia's.

                "You," he said, stepping toward her. "There is something about you—" he trailed off, thinking through what he desired to say. In the end, he pursed his lips as if he were having a silent argument with himself. "There is someone who wishes to speak with you before we leave this place."

                Rydia straightened. "Me?" she asked sheepishly.

                "Yes, and we had best make haste. I fear he is as impatient as myself."

                Everyone glanced at Rydia, as she stood stock still with bewilderment. She shook her head at Cecil, who in turn, glared at FuSoYa.

                "Who is this person?" Cecil asked.

                "A being who dwells on this moon," FuSoYa answered vaguely.

                "Not a Lunarian," Cecil fished.

                "No, not a Lunarian," FuSoYa replied impatiently. "A being of a different nature. One, who I believe, holds some affinity for this one," he said, pointing toward Rydia.

                Rydia blanched, understanding immediately who he was referring to. The Hallowed Father—the Lord of the Eidolons.

                "Come now," FuSoYa impatiently prodded them. "Time does not stand still and we've wasted enough of it."

                Fusoya swiftly turned and guided them away from the crystal palace. They each followed, becoming more perplexed by their new guide by the minute. He spoke very little for quite a distance, paying little attention to even Cecil.

                "His uncle?" Edge whispered to Rydia while they guarded the rear of the party.

                "I thought he'd be more curious about Cecil or even us," Rydia noticed disappointedly.

                "He's probably unimpressed by our existence," Edge remarked at Rydia's inquisitive stare. "He doesn't seem to hold 'our people' in high esteem. I can hardly imagine him viewing a child produced from such a match to be anything but an annoyance," he went on with a sour expression.

                Rydia glanced back to the front of the group where FuSoYa had placed himself. "But they're blood relatives," she argued. "Why wouldn't he want to know more about his brother's son?"

                "I can think of several reasons," Edge shot back. "What worries me more, is him taking you to see that Eidolon."

                Rydia felt her heart jolt at the mention of the Hallowed Father. "You knew—" she began.

                Edge looked back at her, matter-of-factly. "Who else could it be?" he asked her.

                Rydia looked away, feeling foolish. Indeed, who else could it be? "But how could the Hallowed Father even know I was here," she murmured, not realizing for a few steps that she had left Edge behind.

                " _What_?" he demanded.

                She angled her brow, curiously. "What is it?" she asked.

                "The Hallowed Father," Edge said. " _The_ Hallowed Father."

                Rydia's expression morphed from surprise to disbelief. "How are you familiar with that name?" she wondered.

                "That name was given to the Lord of all Dragons—there are stories about him passed down among my people. He's an _Eidolon_?" Edge practically hissed.

                "Yes, he is," Rydia replied, noticing that they had returned to the cavern they had left behind hours before.

                Edge went silent, disturbed by this revelation, but it was FuSoYa who shifted their focus away from their conversation.  

                "I'm surprised," he said, looking around at the corpses of fiends in the cavern passage. "You were able to eliminate quite a few all on your own," the older man mused, nudging a few of the fallen creatures with his booted foot. He turned, taking their measure. "But without magic, I see. Strange, that you travel with a caster, and yet she does not cast."

                Rydia felt her cheeks redden with indignation and embarrassment. "My magic has not been…stable," she said hotly. 

                "Really?" FuSoYa inquired critically. "How so?"

                "Reasons," Edge cut in, angrily. "Why didn't you come out to meet us, or was this all part of some test?"

                "Edge, please," Rosa interrupted, afraid they might anger their guide.

                "He raises an interesting point," Cecil seconded, turning toward his uncle. "Was this a test? To see if your brother made a wise selection in choosing me?"

                FuSoYa straightened his lips into a thin line. "You never knew him, did you," he asked as a statement.

                "I did not."

                "You had no idea of your heritage before coming here," FuSoYa continued.

                Cecil frowned. "No, I did not."

                "You are the child of a brother who abandoned his own people, who took comfort and shelter away from everything else he had known. His entire education, his reputation—all of it, he left behind—in order to…what, exactly?" he asked. "How was I to know the purity of your intentions? How was I to know there was any semblance of Kluya in you and not the influence of Zemus?"

                "You loved my father," Cecil said.

                FuSoYa looked offended. "He was my brother and friend. Of course I loved him."

                "I grew up knowing another as my father," Cecil admitted. "I had always wondered what kind of man my real father was. Where he had come from."

                "He was a good man—an honest man. His search was for truth and for justice. Evidently, he found what he was looking for, or he would not have lingered on your planet."

                "I'm sorry," Cecil admitted. "But I am not your brother, nor can I offer any insight into who he became after he stayed on the planet. I am who I am, and I owe that fact to many good people."

                "And I'm sorry you never knew him," FuSoYa told him sadly. "You passed the test. There was, however, the question of whether your companions would as well."

                "Us?" Rosa asked. "You wanted to test us as well?"

                He looked at each of them. "Zemus is a manipulator. His strength lies in the cunning of his words, of the twisting of emotions. Had any of you been compromised, you never would have survived these caverns."

                "I'm assuming we passed?" Edge asked irately.

                FuSoYa smiled at the prince's disquiet. "You did. And now, we must visit another who has a test of his own in store, I suspect," he added, looking at Rydia. "Which returns me back to why you have not cast magic, when it is clear that you are suited for it."

                Rydia fidgeted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "The crystals that I call upon—they won't answer to me here."

                FuSoYa nodded shrewdly. "I see. Well, you had best learn to solve this problem, or this next challenge may prove too much for you."

                "She'll be fine," Edge retorted. "And what exactly are your skills?" he prodded.

                FuSoYa's eyes sparkled with mirth. "My skills—well, they are best seen."

                Edge studied the Lunarian and FuSoYa likewise stared back. "Lead on, then," Edge suggested, gesturing onward.

 

0-0-0-0

 

                The newly formed group of five traveled backwards through the cave, passing fallen fiends and climbing through the cave-in that Rydia had toppled with magic. FuSoYa glanced at the formation of rocks surrounding the cave-in, nodding and clicking his tongue, but said nothing, much to Rydia's relief.

                There was still the matter of what was waiting for them at the other end of the cave. The creature that dwelled underground.

                When they reached the chamber where they had almost encountered the monster before, Edge gestured them to be quiet, walking on the balls of his feet. Rydia followed suit, walking quietly behind him.

                The vibrations from all of their feet was too much to hide. Sooner than later, they felt the cavern floor begin to shake.

                "Get ready," Cecil warned, drawing his sword.

                They all stood still, waiting it out. The vibrations ceased. And then began again.

                Instinctively, all of them bunched together, making an island of themselves, when a violent explosion of rock erupted from the cave floor. The rocks showered them painfully, and when Rydia opened her eyes again, she glimpsed Cecil being pulled into the hole that had been carved. Edge, who was closest, reached out for Cecil, grabbing the paladin's forearm and being forcefully dragged across the cave floor. Rydia, in turn, reached out for Edge's hand and caught it, being pulled along as well, both of their feet digging trails in the lunar dust but failing to find purchase.

                The force by which they were being dragged surprised and frightened Rydia. The thought of Cecil being lost beneath the lunar rock and being buried alive or eaten seared through her. Her emotions swirled to the surface, allowing herself to hear strains of magic just as she had earlier in the day. If her traditional methods were useless to her here, she would rely on instinct, just as she had as a child. And then she heard it, the chorus in her ears—the voices of the lunar crystals—and she listened until she found the one she required. She began to chant, quickly, frantically, and felt magic bend space and time.

                She closed her eyes, picturing where she wanted to be, and that was where her magic deposited her. She was still holding on to Edge who was holding on to Cecil, when the three of them plummeted to the cave floor across the chamber when her Warp spell had done its work. Cecil was bleeding from multiple deep wounds, and Edge was covered in dust and scrapes, but both were alive. The ninja let go of Cecil and stared at her, out of breath.

                "Where—" he began, looking over her shoulder where the fiend was still burrowing its way below the surface, too shy to show itself. Edge jumped to his feet, not needing further explanation and sped off, but Rydia sat beside Cecil. He was laying flat on the ground, coughing.

                "Cecil," she said quietly, her fingers grabbing hold of his arm.

                He looked at her tiredly. "Thanks for that," he said, wincing as he tried to sit up.

                Rosa was already running toward them, chanting as she went, and Rydia looked up at her, relieved. She smiled down at Cecil. "Let us take care of the rest," she assured him.

                Rydia stood up, seeing the raised trail of upended rock where the creature had burrowed. Several more eruptions of rock and debris betrayed where its head was, and Edge was light on his feet, keeping the fiend preoccupied as he tried to lure it out of hiding.

                Rydia kept her distance and watched. Without a visual mark, there was little she could do.

                Edge was slowing down, still trying to bait the creature, and in the last second before the large head and jaws of the monster sluiced through the rock beneath the ninja's feet, Edge was nothing but a flicker of light, disappearing and reappearing several feet away. The creature roared, annoyed at its prey alluding it so completely, but it had emerged at last.

                A worm—a colossal worm the shade of old rust and covered in barbs that no doubt propelled it underground, was tossing its gaping mouth to and fro, enraged.

                Rydia had her target.

                Her ears were now tuned to the lunar crystals, and she forewent her training and listened instead, picking apart melodies and allowing her emotions to direct her down the proper course.

                Firaga blazed into existence, swirls of liquid fire coiling around their intended target, and tightening like a noose around the large lunar worm's neck. Allowing this spell to flow from her tongue, Rydia sensed the slight differences between the casting of this and others of the same spell. There was greater depth—more power she could draw from the crystals, and the realization surprised her. The creature thrashed its head, bellowing, while the spell seared a black band of necrotic flesh on its body.

                The creature lunged, the multiple fangs on its large mouth converging into a point like a drill as it dove back into the earth, twisting its long body behind it to fit into another burrow. Arrows followed its descent, darts whose fletching stood out in sharp relief against the creature's red body. Rydia glanced over to see Rosa standing with her feet wide apart, her bow drawn tight with another arrow to the string, before the last of the creature's tail vanished.

                The creature drew a trail in the cavern floor with its underground path, surfacing some distance away. Cecil was on his feet again, healed of his wounds, and his sword was in his hand, the point kept at an angle with the ground.

                Rosa fired at the monster's face, aiming for the deeply set eyes; distracting the creature while Cecil ran along its side, aiming for its soft underbelly. The creature curved its head downward, biting in the direction of the attacks, but Edge was quickly there, keeping the creatures mouth occupied with several quick and irritating slashes.

                The creature rose and dove, fangs searching for flesh to pierce, but the ninja provided a small and difficult target, allowing Cecil the time to carve a weeping seam in the monster's side.

                Rydia allowed her anxiety to fuel her next spell--casting Firaga with as much urgency and vengeance as she could muster. The clip and edge of her tone crafted the magic into new and dangerous forms, and the creature ducked its head to escape the onslaught. She was relentless, holding on to the spell for as long as she could, deriving a strange sort of satisfaction from how easily the lunar crystals recognized and lent her their power. 

                The creature wailed, trying to burrow underneath the rock and escape the blistering heat, but Cecil's sword was swiftly under its jaw when the spell abated, hacking through the burnt but leathery skin until he struck deep into the creature's throat and hit an artery. Yellow fluid spilled out of the wound, flooding the ground and the cavern with its stench. The creature gurgled, wriggled, and fell still.

                Everyone stared at the enormous worm, warily catching their breath. Rosa returned to the group from her distant firing perch, and ran her hand reassuredly down Cecil's arm as she passed him by. He looked back at her gratefully.

                "Why are there creatures  like this on the moon?" Rosa finally asked FuSoYa, glancing in his direction.

                The Lunarian was impassive. "Why are there animals on your planet?" he asked simply, leading them away from the corpse.

                "Smartass," Edge grumbled before Rydia smacked his ribs.

 

0-0-0-0

 

                They left the cavern and kept going, pausing some time later to rest. 

                "Fascinating," FuSoYa said, looking at Rydia. She looked back at him shyly, unsure of how to interact with this man from a culture so far advanced from their own. Should she be deferential? Guarded? Curious?

                His regard was cool, detached—something like a scientist.

                "What's fascinating?" Rydia asked after a moment, uncomfortable with the silence.

                "You are compatible," he answered.

                "Excuse me?" she asked, raising her brows.

                He cleared his throat, "I mean to say that your body is adapted to our magic, you are a suitable conduit."

                Rydia glanced at Edge who was sitting nearby, but he shrugged.

                "When you say _our_ magic, you mean the Lunarians?" she asked quietly.

                "Your magic stems from ours. The crystals were not of your invention, nor were the spells you created to harness their inherent elements."

                "The spells—all of them—were yours?" Rydia asked, surprised.

                "Spells," he said, chuckling. "I would expect no less of a term from such an undeveloped race as your own."

                Rydia could tell Edge's ire was piqued, but she reached out and placed her hand on his arm. She didn't want to start a fight with the Lunarian prematurely.  "What do _you_ call it?"

                "We call it power, and we channel it. The words we use are commands, not spells, and they trigger a sequence that is answered by the crystals to a specific function and duration. Your rudimentary language touches but a surface of the crystals' capacity. Were you to learn the true commands, your "magic" as you call it, would be boundless, limited only by the words in your vocabulary."

                Rydia was stunned. "You make it sound so...technical," she observed.

                "The crystals are but tools, and in the hands of a skilled master, they are dangerous and useful tools. Golbez has collected the earth crystals for this very reason—in the proper sequence, Lunarian machines are driven by the energy they emit."

                "And the Eidolons, what of them?" Rydia asked, feeling as if a cork had been removed from a tub, and she were caught in the swirling waters.

                "The Eidolons are another matter. They are the product of life forms exposed to levels of radiation over the course of several decades. The science division once had many such beings in their ranks—hybrids that were more "magic" than mortal. Some experiments were more successful than others."

                "You're saying that the Eidolons were _experiments_?" she was appalled.

                "We do not hold to the same mythical presumptions as yourself," FuSoYa replied. "We are purists, and our endeavors were for the survival of our people."

                "Is that what destroyed your planet?" Edge asked under his breath.

                "There were several differences of opinion as regarded the fate of our planet," Fusoya replied archly. "But when the core of our planet became unstable, a team was assembled of the most brilliant minds of the generation. We brought our research and our most treasured specimens and samples, as well as all the power sources we could gather, and we departed on this ship."

                "Ship," Edge said, startled. "This entire moon is a ship?"

                FuSoYa appeared nonplussed by the prince's reaction. "The core architecture is organic in nature. We possess the technology to transform rock into an actively growing structure, suitable for burrowing and reconstructing the inner strata of the vessel as our needs change."

                "Just how many of you—are there?" Edge asked cautiously.

                "As a guardian of their slumber, I cannot divulge how many sleepers are within my keeping. I can tell you, that there is sufficient number."

                "And Zemus—he's awake?" Edge prodded.

                "His consciousness is integrated with our systems. He broadcasts his awareness through our arrays. In this way, he is able to manipulate the minds of men who are weak to his psychic suggestion, and to teach his puppets superior forms of 'magic'."

                "But if your people invented magic, how were we able to learn it?" Rydia asked.

                "From what I have seen, your magic is many generations away from what it once was, and what it is meant to be. You learned by trial and error, intuitively, and were able to create facsimiles of ours. Yours fall short, of course. The crystals are merely interpreting a best guess with the input you supply."

                "What?" Rydia asked, perplexed.

                "Fire, and its derivations," FuSoYa stated matter-of-factly, closing his eyes and holding out his hand. He chanted a clipped word, and a lick of flame shot forth from the ground and engulfed a nearby boulder until it was charred black. "The most basic incarnation of fire," he informed them, and then closed his eyes again.

                He spoke at most, five brief authoritative words, and a jet of fire rose fifteen feet in the air, snarling and roaring as it changed the surface of the boulder to glass. "Fire's second incarnation," he said.

                Rydia glanced at the older man, amazed by his precision, his control, and the lack of superfluous incantation. He merely spoke fire into existence—no rhythms or melodies. The spell was more concentrated than any of her own, more powerful. With a bit of stubbornness she held onto the belief that while he held all the efficiency of a skilled caster, it lacked emotion—soul.

                "Last incarnation," FuSoYa said, speaking a ten word phrase that fluidly ran together on his tongue, annunciated in just the right places. The blaze that erupted from the boulder itself was blindingly white, blue at the edges, and streaked with green. The glass boulder popped and hissed as a maelstrom surrounded it, finally cracking the stone until it split wide open. Veins of molten rock ran through the cracked halves, turning from molten red to silver. "Firaja."

                Rydia's eyes stung from the heat of the spell, and at the smell of scorched earth.

                "In the caverns it is too cumbersome to operate large tools or machines. 'Magic' is all the assistance we need."

                "You can change the composition of rock?" Rydia said, still amazed.

                "We can change the crystalline composition of minerals, we can smelt metal with flame, we can drill with a careful application of earth moving magic, water is a vessel for the carrying of materials, wind, for ventilation, and then there are the healing applications—which takes a greater base of knowledge."

                "What of the forbidden spells?" Rydia asked later.

                FuSoYa studied her carefully. "Forbidden?" he asked.

                "The spells that were sealed."

                "Ah. Yes," he said, rocking back on his heels. "My brother was fond of your people and taught them many things. You learned magic from his teachings, and years after his first departure, you practiced them, subverted them to your own needs and petty grievances. Some magic was so potent as to be kept from your hands. Destructive magic, the kind of magic used for wiping clean the land of its inhabitants and for fueling the cores of vessels in the absence of crystals."

                "Such a magic exists?" Rydia wondered aloud.

                "Energy to give life; energy to take it away; the power to sustain it. I'm surprised that your life forms can handle the requirements such magic demands of the host. That you are able to wield the crystals' energy without suffering mental damage or systemic organ failure."     

                Rydia understood his meaning. There was a cost to all magic, a dulling of the senses, a mental tax that if pushed far enough, began to fatigue the muscles, and then wither away the body's own energy source. She had reached that point only enough to have a faint impression of it. She had never cast beyond her reserves—to do so, she had been told, would render her insane. Or kill her. And then there was Tellah, who had cast beyond what his body was capable of facilitating, casting until the crystals had burned him out from within.

                "I would like to see you cast again," FuSoYa interrupted her thoughts.

                She stared at him, feeling supremely self-conscious. "Now?" she asked.

                He nodded and gestured to a boulder. "I would like you to split this rock with lightning."

                Rydia noticed that Edge was staring at the both of them curiously, and swallowed hard, studying her target. It was impassive and cold, and the light of the stars twinkled back at her from their cradle in the heavens. She began to chant the words for Thundaga, capturing the essence of the magic, the spirit of the storm. Her voice rose and fell amidst the backdrop of ominous lunar silence. When she had woven her spell to completion, she released the power from her body like a spring.

                A column of white-blue fire lanced into the rock, sparking and popping; the hiss of magic on stone, overwhelming. The thunder that followed in its wake slammed the separated air into union. Rydia received a whiff of ozone for her trouble, and stared at the rock that was blackened, but not broken.

                Fusoya shook his head. "Very eloquent. Very verbose," he commented, and then spoke several words in his own tongue, and a spell very much like Rydia's materialized out of the air; wider, hotter, faster. It bore into the rock like liquid metal, before burrowing into the ground beneath it and fizzling out.

                The thunder was so intense, and the joining of the air so compelling, that Rydia was pulled forward and her hair set on end.

                "The same spell as the one you attempted. This is the power you desire," FuSoYa informed her. "You've a talent for the elemental magicks. If you could learn these new commands, your friends would have the support of your magic in mere heartbeats, not after a lengthy proclamation invoking the various gods of your planet and all of their second cousins."

                "I'm not invoking the powers of any gods," Rydia objected, offended at her magic being called crude.

                "Do you know the meaning of the words you speak, or do you simply say them?" Fusoya asked. "You're improvising, and while admirable, it is an unsuitable way to create a sustainable, repeatable power source."

                His assessment reminded her of Ramuh or Shiva, but her experiences with the Lunar Crystals had led her to believe the opposite. These craved her emotions; her raw, unbridled emotions. "You want to teach me the Lunarian methods?" Rydia asked, surprised.

                Fusoya made a face, sizing her up. "Your genetic code has been altered by radiation already—you possess a certain resistance, or receptiveness, for it," he muttered to himself and cast a spell that when it encased her, resembled Libra, though in no incarnation of it that Rydia had ever seen. Banded strands floated around her, twisting in delicate parallel spirals. Fusoya was studying them with a hand pressed to his chin.

                "Your makeup is quite fascinating indeed. There are mutations specific to the influence of certain crystals; bundles of genes that show a vast deviation from, no doubt, one of your parents. You are the offspring of an interesting coupling."

                Rydia swallowed hard, unable to comprehend what he was talking about. "I'm an interesting sample of breeding?" she said, offended. Edge, beside her, was threatening death with his eyes.

                "You, my child, have magic in your very blood, in the very code of your makeup. There was a theory once among our own people that such a phenomenon might be possible, but we lacked sufficient test data and time to study subjects over the course of several generations." 

                "I am not a creature to be studied," she said vehemently.

                Fusoya smiled at her. "I did not mean to insult you," he said. "In fact, I must commend you. Your race has progressed far in less generations than expected. Should our own race fail, your people may be all that remains of our legacy, and of the knowledge we possess. I would like to teach you, to correct the vagaries between what our magic was meant to be, and what you've made of it."

                "You want to re-teach me magic?" Rydia asked. "I spent the better part of ten years learning what I know, and you want to undo it within a few short days?"

                "Not undo, but sharpen. I hear in the underlying architecture, the base code of our commands. You have modified the wordings to suit your own needs. You have made songs of your spells—they tell a story—when they were meant to serve a single function. As a poet whittles down prose, so you must shed your spells of their burdensome incantations. You must seek the true words. You will become a faster spell-caster, and one who can be relied upon in battle to stand fast and not hide behind her allies for defense. Where you are going, this will be all the more necessary."

                "Excuse me?"

                "You must be as quick with your spells as a swordsman with his weapon. There lies the potential to be as nimble with words as with deeds, and you must learn to do this."

                "Why me?" she asked, feeling as though the weight of someone else's destiny had fallen upon her shoulders.

                "Because those of a dying breed must learn to adapt," he answered simply.

0-0-0-0-0

                The return to the ship was far less dramatic than the foray to the Crystal Palace had been, and FuSoYa took command of the vessel with expertise, showing Cecil the finer points of its operations.

                When they lifted from the lunar surface, FuSoYa flew them beyond the palace, hovering over the landscape below them with its ravines and crevices until they were above a large crater with a solitary mound in its center. Here, he set them down.

                They walked the length of the crater, and Rydia tensed with each step. She knew who was waiting for them, and it frightened her more than she cared to let on. They entered the cavern in the crater's center, sensing a presence upon their first steps inside.

                "I feel I've been patient enough," Cecil said, directing the statement at FuSoYa. "Who is it that we've come to see? And why does everyone else seem to know what this is about?"

                FuSoYa was implacable, turning his gaze on Rydia instead. She blanched, looking at Cecil. "An Eidolon," she told him hesitantly.

                "An Eidolon," Cecil repeated, staring between her, FuSoYa, and Edge. " _Here_."

                "The Hallowed Father of the Eidolons," Rydia elaborated. "He is revered in the Feymarch, the Lord of all Dragons."

                Cecil went pale with anger, glaring at FuSoYa. "This hardly seems safe," he argued.

                "Of course it isn't safe," FuSoYa replied. "But it is necessary."

                "Why?" Cecil pressed.

                FuSoYa nodded in Rydia's direction. "More for her sake than for yours. The one we are going to see holds great power—power enough to challenge Zemus."

                "Rydia?" Cecil asked, bewildered.

                "If the Hallowed Father wishes to see me, I don't know that we have much of a choice," she said, unable to shake the notion that _she_ was being summoned and not the other way around.

                "Eidolons are particular about whom they keep as company," FuSoYa explained. "Even _our_ presence they disdain. But her—her, he might oblige."

                "Let's get this over with, then," Edge said impatiently, staring into the narrow corridor below them.

                "Yes, I agree," FuSoYa answered, looking at Cecil for confirmation.

                Cecil was not pleased about the situation, but even he couldn't deny the presence of _something_ waiting for them in the belly of the cave. They decided to continue, following the steep cavern entrance until it widened onto a platform of rock that overlooked a vast chamber, so vast, they couldn't see its end.

                The Lair of the Father was pristine. The air was crisp, sharp even, and the minerals that comprised its walls were pyramidal and reflected a peculiar bluish light from an unknown source.

                The path was strange, like a hive mined into the moon; its tiers were joined by delicate arches that serpentined down, spiraling around large columns, burrowing through and around others, and falling away to steep drops.

                FuSoYa led them into the depths, explaining briefly that even among the Lunarians, there were secrets and experiments that had gone wrong;  of which, Zemus had been a key player.  Rydia listened to the history lesson while her eyes scanned the cave. Her senses had been in disarray since entering the cave, and had been playing games with her the deeper they traveled. There was magic everywhere, as if the very air was comprised of it.

                Edge's forehead was pinched into a frown, so she knew she wasn't alone in her suffering, at least.

                "Everywhere," she heard him mutter at one point.

                She glanced over at him, and he looked back at her, pained. "What is it?" she asked.

                "Normally, I can tell when there are fiends nearby," he complained. "Now I can't even distinguish you from them."

                She furrowed her brow. "Excuse me?"

                He sighed and looked at her exasperatedly. "Your magic," he said. "I can tell your magic apart from the fiends—or even Rosa's. But you're blending in with the magic of this place—camouflaged. And so are the fiends for that matter."

                Rydia's brows rose in surprise. "You don’t know if there are fiends nearby?" she asked.

                He shook his head, his expression grim. "We could be surrounded, for all I know."

                "Run!" FuSoYa's voice startled them. They both looked to the front of the group where a ball of flame was approaching at ravenous speeds. Cecil and Rosa jumped out of its path, and Edge and Rydia did the same, only the ends of Rydia's hair being singed by its passing.

                It exploded against the wall behind them, dissipating with a snarl, as the rest of them regained their footing and drew weapons.

                A lone woman appeared farther down the path, holding a gnarled staff in her hand made of stone, not of wood. Her eyes were black like coals and her mouth was moving again, strains of magic drifting across the distance and reaching Rydia's ears.

                "She's a mage!" she shouted, trying to find cover and break the line of sight between herself and the strange woman.

                Thundaga struck the rocks beside her, tearing through the air with searing heat, and lurching Rydia's heart to a stop for a fraction of a second before it regained its rhythm again.  

                "Beware her spells!" FuSoYa warned a moment too late.

                Rydia glanced over at Edge who had thrown himself behind a nearby pillar and was peering around it. Blizzaga coated the cave floor in the space between the two of them, and Edge ducked back quickly, sparing her a fleeting look while the spell creaked and popped before dissipating.

                  They stood no chance if they were pinned down. Rydia would have to create her own sight lines if she wanted to attack the mage with magic. She crouched, hesitantly lifting her head above the scorched boulder beside her, and gasped when a sword blade searched for her neck, but missed, slicing her shoulder instead.

                Rydia clutched at her slashed sleeve and at the blood trickling down her arm as she fell backwards.

                Another woman—this one different from the mage, leapt atop the boulder, brandishing two swords and leering down at Rydia as though she was a defenseless creature waiting to be butchered. Rydia grabbed her whip, uncoiling it hastily and trying to gain enough purchase to swing it. The woman slapped it from her hand with one sword, standing above her with both swords poised for a killing blow.

                Rydia's anger flew to her lips, chanting automatically, but Edge was there as well. He filled her vision, quick as a cat, and hooked his own twin blades between those of the woman's, pushing her back as she hissed.

                "Rydia, find Cecil," Edge interrupted her, halting her spell halfway to completion. When she didn't move fast enough, he glared at her. " _Now!_ " he shouted, engaging the woman in battle and drawing her away.

                Rydia crawled to her feet, running clumsily across the passage and behind another pillar, glimpsing what had become of the others. Cecil was trying to approach the mage but was pinned by her magic, holding his shield above his head to deflect her spells while Rosa was supporting him from a distance. FuSoYa was casting spells of his own, keeping the mage on her toes as she danced and leapt away, but no one could seem to get near enough to damage her.    

                _Summon us,_ she heard in the back of her mind. She blinked, feeling as though the Feymarch was nearby, separated from this world by only a thin veil.

                The Eidolons had never touched her mind in this way, nor asked to be summoned. She glanced around the pillar again, realizing that maintaining a sightline with the mage was too difficult. Too difficult for magic, but not for an Eidolon.

                She closed her eyes and steadied herself, beginning to chant the language of her people. Shiva's name rose in her thoughts, and she invoked it.

                The Eidolon of ice strode out of nothingness as if she'd only stepped through a door. Long hair bound in beautiful cords fell to her calves, and the garment she wore clung to her like frost itself.

                The mage paused in its salvo against Cecil and stared at Shiva with narrowed eyes. They were two foes sizing each other up, and Cecil even glanced at the Eidolon as she calmly walked by, ice coating the ground wherever her feet touched it.

                The mage hissed, hastily casting another spell which Shiva deflected, barely blinking; bouncing the Thundaga spell far afield. And then she raised her hand, cold air swirling into a globe of vapor above her palm. The mage stepped back, concerned by Shiva's advance, as the Eidolon readied herself, fingers pointing artfully in the direction of the fiend. Icicles flew like swords, piercing the mage through the chest with four deadly thuds. The fiendish woman fell snarling, casting magic in Rydia's direction out of furious revenge. The mage aimed wide and hit nothing, but Shiva wasn't quite done. She formed a blade of ice out of the air, serrated and billowing steam, and without flinching or slowing down, drew it across the mage's throat, ending its miserable life.               

                _You've been hard to reach,_ Shiva shared with Rydia through their bond. Rydia wavered slightly, unused to being able to communicate in this way. _We told you we would answer your summons and we never lie._

                Shiva turned, admonishingly catching Rydia's eye, and nodded. Rydia released the Eidolon gratefully, feeling her energy wane with the summoning.        

                "Where's Edge?" Rosa asked, looking over her shoulder in Rydia's direction.

                Rydia shook her head, not sure where he had disappeared to, and was suddenly worried.

                "Here," he tiredly announced, climbing out from  behind a cluster of columns, covered in slashes and bleeding wounds.

                "Are you alright?" Rydia asked, staring him up and down.

                He grinned at her, though it came off looking ridiculous, battered as he was.      

                "I'm conscious and upright" he answered, bemused.

                Rydia looked around him. "And that sword woman?"

                "Dead," he answered, sheathing his swords.

                Cecil was also back on his feet, exhausted from enduring so many spells, while Rosa approached Edge to examine his injuries.

                "It's been a while since we've seen Shiva," Rosa commented to Rydia, while she looked Edge over.

                Rydia watched quietly as Edge reluctantly allowed himself to be mended, and realized how long it had been as well. It had been weeks since she'd summoned Shiva, but months since she'd experienced as close a connection to any Eidolon since the Feymarch—and not since entering the Void. It was so similar here—an invisible barrier separating her from home, and all she had to do was walk through the veil as if it were glass.

                "The Eidolons are close," was all Rydia said as explanation.

                "Good, because it seems we'll need them," Cecil said, staring at the corpse of the mage on the ground.

                "But who taught the fiends how to use swords?" Edge asked annoyed, picking at the ruined portions of his clothing.

                FuSoYa crossed his arms. "As I said—even the Lunarians kept secrets from each other. Zemus conducted experiments. The depths to which they went? Not even I know that."

 

0-0-0-0

                The witches of the caverns were dangerous and irritatingly prevalent, the group discovered. They cast magic with the same power FuSoYa had exhibited, but they were slower and Rydia was quicker. What she lacked in precision, she made up for with speed, and FuSoYa had helped with that. Rydia had learned the lunar variations to some of her more familiar spells, executing them with expert skill. Rosa's own voice layered atop hers, a combination of defense and offense. The men had had their chance to show off, but now it had become a game of magic.

                Reflect quickly protected Rydia from above, deflecting Thundaga away from her and into a part of the cavern wall. Stone shattered and flew, and the five of them dodged the searing flames of Firaga as it melted the ground beneath them while Rosa cast silence, striking down one mage with the malady. Rydia sent Blizzaga crackling on the air as a rebuttal; every droplet of moisture surrounding the witches freezing solid to bursting.

                They charted a course through the bodies of fallen fiends, until the path widened again.

                There were dragons in the cavern as well, skeletons of dragons that walked as though they were alive. Those had been more than a difficulty, nearly decapitating Rosa and Cecil both during one encounter. The five of them had become better at trusting their ears, and passed through several more of the mined passages with fewer surprises.

                But as the passages delved deeper, the silence grew more profound. 

                Edge suddenly tensed at Rydia's side, and she glanced at him, trusting his instincts. Her eyes swept the passage, searching for the sight of scattered bones or the glint of a sword, but none of the usual tells were present. She frowned, puzzled. She had sensed it too, the horrible feeling of being hunted—of being prey.     

                A low growl tickled her ears and she spun, only fast enough to see the clawed paw of a terrible beast descend upon her in one swift, crushing motion. The monster's attack took she and Edge together, hurling them sideways. Rydia landed on her hands and knees, feeling the passage rocks tear through her gloves and into skin. The abrasions stung, but Rydia rolled over, gasping out a cry as the same paw tore a trail of grooves with its enormous claws in the place where she had been moments before. The creature roared, baring curved fangs, and she felt every hair on her body rise.

                "A behemoth!" FuSoya shouted, quickly taking cover with Rosa in the mouth of a tunnel ahead of them.

                Rydia had become the focus of the beast; and Edge, dazed, had returned to his feet with twin blades in hand. He was bleeding from a gash on his scalp and his blood was a stark contrast to his silver hair and gray cloak, but his eyes were sharp as ever.

                He sprinted beneath the behemoth's other massive paw, stabbing upward as he did, and received a snarl and a quick snap from the fiend.

                Edge was too fast for the larger animal, and the behemoth soon gave up on chasing the ninja between its legs, focusing again on the smaller, more vulnerable summoner before him.

                Rydia felt rooted in place, crippled by fear. The fall had rattled her nerves, and there was too much distance between herself and Cecil. She had no knight's shield to protect her. She dodged and rolled, avoiding claws again, and began an old summon. It was a familiar bolero, the incantation that drew one fiery beast from the furnace of the underworld. She felt his answer quicker than she expected, and she pulled on the tether, on the line she had cast, and pulled with every ounce of concentration she possessed.

                The behemoth lunged and she cowered, still chanting, but death never came. Rydia peered upwards through cracked eyelids and saw the muscular and furious form of Ifrit standing above her, his strong arms keeping the Behemoth's at bay. The two beings wrestled, each snarling at the other. Ifrit cast off the behemoth's paw, charging into the fiend's shoulder and driving the monster off-balance and backwards. The behemoth's purple hide rippled over its muscles as it lowered its body, preparing to spring.

                The beast was as beautiful as it was terrible, but Ifrit was no tame creature either. The behemoth leapt, still hoping to kill its intended prey, but Ifrit also pounced, intercepting the monster in the air with his own jagged claws.  

                Rydia watched in dismay, as the two exchanged blows, circling around each other in a competition of strength. And then her breath was stolen completely by a strong arm around her waist, dragging her away.

                _Edge,_ she realized. Always at her side, especially when she least expected him to be.

                He pulled her away from the battle and behind cover where the others were waiting.

                "Release him," Edge gasped once they were safely behind a large column at the entrance to the tunnel where the others were sheltering.

                Rydia peered around the column, watching the battle behind them with fear in her eyes. Ifrit had received a deep wound to his leg from the behemoth's scythe like claws , and retaliated with hellfire. The flames slammed into the behemoth's face, eliciting a roar, before Rydia severed her connection to the Eidolon, returning him to the Feymarch with a heavy sigh.

                The behemoth continued to snarl and prowl, searching for Ifrit as if he was a mouse that had gone to ground.

                "How do we fight this beast?" Cecil demanded quietly, keeping his voice purposefully low.

                "They are some of the strongest beasts among all that we brought with us," FuSoYa explained. "They were…specimens to be preserved."

                "You look surprised to see it," Edge observed with a frown.

                The Lunarian appeared mollified. "They were not to be revived."

                "So how are we supposed to kill it?" Cecil repeated.

                "All you can hope to do is tire it out," FuSoYa admitted. "It will never let you near enough to its head to strike its jugular. Avoid its claws, and also—"

                FuSoYa never finished that thought, as all of them leapt back when the Behemoth pawed at the column they were hiding behind, it's jaws snapping for meat.

                "Keep it occupied!" FuSoYa cried, rushing for more cover. "You—" he said to Rosa, who was looking in the direction of the behemoth, but had her head tilted toward the Lunarian. "—cast Blink."

                "Blink?" Rosa asked, surprised.

                "The behemoth relies on its eyes more than anything else. Trick its eyes and we might stand a chance."

                Edge glanced at Cecil as the two of them quickly stood and bolted, trying to lure the beast away from the others. They each ran in opposite directions, and the behemoth swung left and right, undecided, before lunging for the slower of the two.

                Cecil had found armaments left throughout the cave, and he held his newly acquired shield before him, using it to keep away the behemoth's teeth as they snapped and snarled in his direction. Cecil was lighter on his feet than before, finding his new armor more maneuverable than his last, but even so, there was no escaping the biting jaws of the behemoth.

                Edge ran until he was behind the creature, hurling shurikens with ruthless precision. The beast was preoccupied with Cecil, and so Edge aimed for its soft joints, drawing blood as darts pierced the tendons and ligaments of its knees and ankles. The behemoth roared and half-turned, more annoyed than mortally wounded; and Edge realized too late, that he had paid too little attention to the fiend's hind legs. He was struck hard by the behemoth's tail, sending him sprawling to the ground with a crack. There was no mistaking the break of a bone, and Edge's arm sent messages of pain and alarm to his brain, but he had lived through worse.  

                He gritted his teeth and was up in a fraction of a second, rolling to his feet and running again, a constantly moving target.

                When he glanced again in Cecil's direction, he blinked. Was he imagining things? The paladin looked like he was shimmering and in two places at once. Edge squinted while he ran, pelting the behemoth's hide with more darts as he went. And then the behemoth roared and struck Cecil with its forepaw, throwing the knight to the cavern floor while blood trickled from its mouth. Cecil had finally landed a hit?

                Cecil hastily returned to his feet, ducking behind his shield, and a flicker of green from behind let Edge know that Rydia had rejoined the battle. Her lithe form was indistinct, blurred, and he realized that Rosa's magic must be at work.

                Rydia let loose a number of spells in quick succession. Fire, ice, and finally disease. Only one had any effect on the beast, and it snarled, then wheezed, as Bio took hold. The behemoth took several steps backwards, shaking its head and whipping its tail in all directions.

                Edge circled wide and returned to the group, catching Rosa's eye. "We should fall back," he said tersely.

                "Not without Cecil," she said, looking anxiously at where Cecil was still keeping the fiend at bay.

                "Fall back!" Edge shouted across the passage.

                Cecil blocked another bite from the behemoth's mouth and finally began to step away, waiting until the beast lunged wide, and then ran, joining the others as they all hurried into a narrower passage riddled with columns and pillars that the Behemoth had no chance of navigating. The mineral maze spread out before them like a forest of dead trees, and they sprinted between and around the columns, leaving the behemoth behind them, roaring its displeasure. They slowed down as the passage began to widen and the maze to spread out, but slid to a complete halt when three large columns shattered in their path. Crystal shards were sent through the air, and they shielded their eyes from the debris, not knowing what had caused it. They ducked behind what cover there was, holding their breath and straining their ears.

                Snarling. Snarling accompanied by the sound of heavy padded feet and the glimpse of a purple hide over corded muscle.

                "Two behemoths," Rosa uttered, out of breath.

                They were trapped.

                Edge glanced at Rydia whose face was ashen pale. Her eyes flicked around the pillar she was cowering behind, searching for her new target. She was chanting again, and Edge caught Cecil's eye as the two of them silently decided to venture back into the pillar maze for more cover. Rosa tapped Rydia's shoulder before the four of them began to run, letting the summoner know of their plans as she cast Bio at the behemoth barring their path. Edge looked over his shoulder, seeing Rydia running to catch up to him, and the Behemoth behind her, enraged. It bellowed and charged, sending crystalline shrapnel through the winding tunnels as it clawed its way in after them.

                Edge reached back and grabbed Rydia's hand with his good arm, tugging her forward as he dove for a crevice. The behemoth's claws raked the air above them, and they took off running at a diagonal, slipping between narrow openings between pillars and then changing direction again. The behemoth fell farther behind them as it lost track of their movements, until finally, the two of them rejoined with the others, running until they were lost in the maze.    

                They could hear both behemoths on either side of them, growling, and calling out to each other like two cats that had cornered prey. The five companions circled together, listening as the behemoths scraped their own path through the maze. Eventually, they were going to be found.  

                "Now what," Rosa said, glancing between Cecil and Edge, annoyed.

                Edge nearly laughed, so annoyed at their present situation, that he had no plan to offer.

                "We can barely fend off one," Cecil commented, staring over his shoulder.

                FuSoYa's brow was wrinkled in thought. "They are territorial creatures," he mused. "If they could be fooled into attacking each other..."

                "How are we going to accomplish this?" Rosa demanded, holding her bow.

                Edge was already considering scenarios, looking around them. "We fool them with sound," he said, standing up.

                "What?" Cecil asked, staring at the ninja.

                "If we lure them into that open space," Edge said, pointing past their hiding place into a wider section of the passage, "We can pin them there."

                The behemoths had already broken through much of the maze, and their roaming footsteps had grown closer.

                "Do it," Cecil said, giving Edge the permission he needed to do something potentially foolish and deadly.

                Edge wove signs with his hands, silently preparing magic that he then released. A solitary lightning bolt flashed in the wider portion of the passage, away from the group, and the sound of it was like a flock of agitated birds as it squeaked and crackled from the cavern ceiling to the floor. The flash of the spell faded while the sound of it reverberated off of pillars in the maze.

                The five of them waited, and then were rewarded by the sight of the two behemoths converging on the same path at once. Finding nothing but charred rock, the behemoths whirled, snarling and spitting as they sized each other up. One behemoth struck the other, drawing blood with its enormous paw, and the two lunged, their forearms locked together while their fangs strove to maim the other.

                Cecil slipped the group away from the two battling beasts, leading them along a different path than before. It wasn't long before their pristine passage fell away to the broken stumps and scattered debris left by the behemoth that had pursued them, and with both beasts behind them, they quickened their pace, running more easily through the open tunnel.

                The tunnel eventually ended and the cavern ceiling rose far above them, vanishing into darkness. All around them, the deep of the lunar subterrane skirted the newly narrowed path. It was a bridge of rock that seemed to float in the midst of an abyss, running deep into the vast cavern and joining with a large island of rock in the chamber's center.

                FuSoYa was unable to maintain the pace set by the others, and they were forced to slow down, breathing hard and laboring from wounds they had put aside since the hunt began.   

                Rosa chanted softly, setting bones, healing gashes, and mending bruises while they walked. She was haggard, and Edge frowned, knowing that FuSoYa was equally capable of healing them of their injuries, but had chosen not to. In fact, he had been largely unhelpful since joining their company, and Edge scowled at the Lunarian who was standing apart from the group, checking over his shoulder.

                Cecil's uncle or no, he hadn't done much to endear himself upon his human companions, and even Cecil didn't fully trust the man.

                "They've found us out," FuSoYa said sharply, pointing behind them.

                They all turned to look, and then began to run as both behemoths cleared the tunnel and bounded after them with long, purposeful strides.

                Rydia was chanting while she ran, a feat Edge found remarkable, and he felt the presence of an Eidolon enter the chamber without turning to look for confirmation. Rydia suddenly stopped, pivoting  to face off against the behemoths, and Edge spun a few strides past her, afraid to leave her defenseless. When he finally looked behind them, he realized she was anything but.

                A giant—a true giant—consumed the path between the five of them and the two behemoths who pursued them. The Eidolon wore little but a loin cloth and polished beads in a necklace around his neck. He was more heavily muscled than any vain athlete could be, biceps and thighs bulging beneath tanned and oiled skin.

                The giant bellowed, pounding both fists in unison into the stone bridge beneath their feet, and sending up a piercing cloud of stone and crystal and dust. The explosion was so fierce that the shockwave sent everyone stumbling to their knees. The bridge collapsed, toppling into the brink, and the behemoths attempted to clear the breach, pouncing through the flying debris only to be knocked down by Titan's meaty fists.

                The fell, snapping their teeth as they snarled and twisted in the air, trying to find purchase but failing. Both of them vanished with the stone and dust into the darkness below.

                Rydia released Titan to the Feymarch and stumbled backwards as the bridge continued to crumble and rocks to skitter out of sight. Edge reached out and caught her shoulder, and the two of them looked at each other for a long moment.

                "Are you alright?" he asked her.

                Dirt was smudged across her face, streaked with blood, and after another moment of bafflement, she grinned. "I'm conscious and upright," she replied wryly.

                "Three summonings in one day," he said archly.

                "Not so useless after all, am I," she retorted, bemused.

                He shook his head at her. "I don't know what nonsense FuSoYa has put into your head, but you're stretching yourself too thin," he warned.

                She stepped out of his grasp. "I have my magic again—you should be anything but resentful," she scolded.

                He frowned at her. "You have _their_ magic," he said. "You're accessing _their_ crystals. You don't even realize it, do you?"

                "Realize what?" she asked, offended.

                "That you haven't stopped humming since reclaiming your magic."

                "What?" Rydia demanded, convinced he was lying. "How could I be humming and not know it?"

                "Whenever we pause to rest; when we returned to the ship," he went on.

                "I'm not humming," she insisted.

                "Rydia, I think the Lunar crystals are having some effect on your mind."

                She narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders. "Would you rather we travel these caverns without magic?" she asked honestly.

                He had no answer, and so she shook her head at him. "You were the one who suggested I listen to them," she scoffed.

                He looked away, chagrined. "I'm thinking now that it might have been a mistake."

                "I'm _adapting_ ," she told him acidly, walking away.

                He watched her go, rejoining Cecil and Rosa. They appeared as relieved as they were concerned, and Edge followed Rydia a little more slowly, wondering what they had thought of the argument the two of them had just shared.

                Neither said a word, but it was FuSoYa whose gaze on Rydia bothered Edge most. He was staring at her appreciatively, like a teacher whose prize student had finally mastered a difficult lesson. Was he using her just as he had used Cecil to get them to the moon in the first place?

                Edge had little time to dwell on the subject, suddenly overwhelmed by a surge of energy emanating from the center of the cavern chamber.

                A presence followed—an ancient presence that sliced through Edge's thoughts and laid them bare. The ninja froze in place, alarmed at having his mind be intruded upon in such a fashion.

                _Come,_ a voice commanded. It was a voice of magic and timelessness, of knowledge and anger all bound together in a singular existence.

                Rydia fell to her knees, and Rosa dove to catch her.

                "Rydia?" the white mage asked, placing a hand on the summoner's cheek.

                Rydia was unresponsive for a full minute, staring listlessly toward the center of the chamber. Finally, she stirred, standing up again.

                "Bahamut," was all she said.     

 

0-0-0-0-0-0

                 

                The island in the center of the cavern chamber was nothing short of breathtaking. It was comprised of crystals of multiple colors, and they glittered from within. Amid the crystal nest was a wide platform, interspersed with more crystal formations that appeared to be alive and growing.

                Three figures stood in its center. Two were short and slight, their bodies covered by long hooded robes, but one towered above the others. His face was partially obscured, save for his reptilian snout with protruding fangs.  

                His identity hardly needed to be guessed.

                "So, you have enlisted the aid of Leviathan," Bahamut spoke to them, not bothering with introductions. "I am surprised you have made it this far, human child," he said, addressing Rydia.

                Rydia bowed low, not daring to look at the Hallowed Father, while the two attendants of the Eidolon king left his presence.

                 "Your Majesty," she said.

                Bahamut laughed, a raspy sound that betrayed his true form. "I see you hold proper deference to the one who holds dominion over the skies and those born of the crystals," he said. "Welcome, child of earth."

                "Your majesty, you summoned me?" she asked, her voice small in the large space.

                "I wished to see the one with magic in her blood—the one who fancies herself a friend to Eidolon kind. She who has won the aid of Leviathan and his chosen queen."

                "I am here," Rydia replied nervously, finally looking up at the Eidolon's face.

                "Leviathan may be a king among dragons, little one, but I am the Emperor. Power such as his can be won without light’s gift. Only the ultimate trial can determine if that most sacred force truly rests within you. The trial of I, Bahamut—Hallowed Father of the Eidolons!"

                The five of them hastily stepped back,  as the Hallowed Father shed his cloak and underwent a sudden and terrible transformation. Gone was the man who had stood before them mere minutes before. In his place, rose a giant of a dragon, putting all other dragons to shame. The magic unbinding his concealment, pulsed from head to foot, causing his scales to glow a molten gold. Talons curled like sabers into the ground, clicking against the lunar stone. Arms and legs bulged with coiled muscle, and the dragon's neck stretched in a long arc, lined by twin rows of razor sharp spines that culminated into fearsome horns on Bahamut's head. He wrapped his tail about his body, coiling it like a whip, and the tip was like a flail, and made a sound like metal  beating the stone. Bahamut loomed above them, staring down at them over his ridged nose. Opening his mouth, his angular teeth glistened, and smoke issued over his tongue.

                The dragon suddenly lunged, his teeth snapping a hairsbreadth from Cecil's face. Cecil lurched backwards in terror and watched anxiously as the dragon pulled back his mighty head and stared at the paladin and the Lunarian beside him.

                " _Lunarians!_ " Bahamut roared, outraged. "Of all the vile creatures of this galaxy, you manipulators of destiny—you cursed breed," he seethed.

                Bahamut shook his back foot and the rattle of chains caught their attention. An enormous shackle had been fitted to the dragon's ankle and it gleamed dully with magic.

                "It was _your_ people who chained me here," Bahamut bellowed. "You who keep me here as your prisoner."

                FuSoYa folded his arms and regarded the Eidolon before him. "You were warned," he said calmly. "Zemus is the one you want, not myself or this boy."

                " _Warned?"_ Bahamut spat. "Such a betrayal is not to be borne!"

                "I have brought you one who heeds your kind," FuSoYa said instead. "One who can break your chains."

                Bahamut whirled, fixing Rydia with an enormous golden eye.

                "Can she now?"

                Rydia blanched and stepped back, not understanding the argument she had just stepped into.

                "I—I will try," she said.

                "Face me in battle, then, and I will determine if Leviathan's judgment was sound," Bahamut bellowed, overwhelming the cavern with the sound of his voice.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                Rydia stared up at the Hallowed Father, at the immensity of his form and felt her spirit quail. The others had taken cover, but her feet wouldn't obey her. She was rooted in place, and all she felt coursing through every fiber of her being was magic.

                She listened to the crystals, to their voices on the air. They were chanting to her, speaking directions in calm and dulcet tones. She closed her eyes, allowing them into her mind again—a strange comfort in this strange land—and let the thought of the mighty dragon before her slip from her concerns…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                 

                Edge had heard many legends about dragons throughout his childhood—and some of the Hallowed Father himself—but none quite compared to the dragon before him now. Bahamut was a legend come to life, and the heat and force of his presence was enough to make the ninja quail backwards. They had no business being here in the cave of the Hallowed Father of the Eidolons, but Rydia had been summoned. Or been given as an offering—he still wasn't sure which.

                FuSoYa had filled her head with nonsense and Lunarian mysteries, not helping matters by supplanting her own magic with new and terrible invocations.

                Edge glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, at how she was staring at the Eidolon king without really looking at him. It was if she had no need for Libra—that she was seeing his every detail with her mind.

                How were they supposed to do battle with such a beast, he wondered.

                "We must repel his magic," FuSoYa was saying. Edge listened with half an ear, tired of the Lunarian's advice. "Reflective magic will protect us from the effects of his breath," FuSoYa went on.

                Rosa was chanting before FuSoYa had finished his sentence, finding cover behind a large boulder as she wove magic into the physical manifestation she required. Edge looked to Cecil, and then the others. Two sword bearers and three mages. He sighed.

                "Looks like it's you and me," he called out to Cecil.

                Cecil looked back at him, appearing just as thrilled about the situation.

                "Wishing you had a shield?" Cecil asked him offhandedly.

                Edge shrugged, sliding his katanas free of their sheaths. "I'll take my chances."

                FuSoYa joined Rosa behind one of the crystal formations on the platform, but it was Rydia who had yet to find shelter.

                "Rydia!" Edge shouted at her, but she didn't move an inch. She was focused on the dragon, her eyes fixed on some faraway plane.

                Bahamut finally stirred, rising from his haunches and uncoiling his tail. It sliced across the cavern, its flail-like tip shattering stone and sending it flying as it whipped through the air. It was headed straight for the company, and everyone else had the sense to duck but Rydia. So transfixed was she, that she merely stared, watching her fate come to her without concern.

                "Rydia!" Edge yelled again, sprinting the distance between them in a span that seemed to stretch interminably. He had no time for delicacy. He dove into her, pulling her to the ground with violent force as the dragon's tail whistled overhead, snarling the air into an eddy that whipped their clothes and hair against their bodies. Stone shrapnel flung up crystal formations stung their skin like glass and Edge shielded Rydia with his body until the brunt of the attack had passed.

                Sitting up, he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes until she blinked. And even then, it was an effort for her. "Are you even awake?" he snarled at her.

                She stared at him, finally realizing he was there, and then her gaze hardened. "I know what I'm doing," she seethed at him.

                The tone of her voice took Edge off-guard, but he tried to pull her up with him and back toward the others.

                She refused. "I _know_ what I'm doing," she argued, and took off at a run, isolating herself from the others.

                Edge watched her go, dumbfounded, and shifted his attention to the dragon before him.

 

                Convex shields of magic spread about the air before them—mirrors that would reflect enemy spells. Edge breathed a brief sigh of relief, knowing he would feel even better if the spell could deflect the beast's claws as well.

                Bahamut made a pass for him, and he dodged a swipe of Bahamut's talons, jumping onto the dragon's arm and using all of his skill to remain balanced as he climbed the dragon's scales to the more delicate skin of the elbow joint. Edge removed a kunai from his belt and hurled the weapon as hard as he could at a seam in the dragon's plating. The kunai struck true, digging into the dragon's skin beneath the armor, and Bahamut bellowed. For all his size, the dagger was nothing more than a thorn to the dragon, but annoyed, Bahamut swiped at Edge with his other arm. The ninja slid back down the way he'd come, skidding, and then jumping onto the other arm as the talons combed the place where he'd just been. He was more than an annoyance now to the dragon, who wanted him gone, and the dragon snapped his wrist, sending Edge flying.

                It was a strange sensation to be moving at such a great velocity, but Edge had learned a thing or two about great heights recently, and twisted himself in the air, landing well behind his companions and more or less on his feet. The landing still robbed him of breath and it took a few moments before he felt confident enough to return to the battle line.

                Bahamut, in the meantime, had decided Cecil looked an acceptable quarry, and the paladin was having great difficulty blocking the barrage of blows from the dragon's claws while being driven backwards. Each strike from the dragon's claws nearly toppled the knight sideways, and without aid, the paladin wouldn't last long.

                Rydia was still woefully quiet, and had been for the duration of the battle. By some miracle, she had escaped the brunt of Bahamut's attacks, but Edge wanted to scream at her. She had chosen a brilliant time to go useless on them.

                _Mages_ he silently cursed.

                Then Bahamut did something that made Edge truly quail. The dragon roared. The sound reverberated off of the walls and the floor, resonating with a certain deep magic, the kind that stirred up terror. Smoke issued from the dragon's maw, tendrils of doom, marking the unleashing of the beast's internal furnace.

                The Reflect spell Rosa had placed on him had worn ominously thin, and Edge eyed the faint red sheen in front of him, hoping that such tenuous magic could protect him from the inferno they were about to endure.

                "Stand firm!" FuSoYa commanded.

                Edge gritted his teeth, knowing how little it cost the Lunarian to say such words when he hid behind rocks and pillars and left the rest to the 'lesser beings'.

                Bahamut did not allow much time for the humans to seek cover before he rained liquid fire upon them. The blast rocked the cavern, blistering and blazing across the floor, and turning the stone to glass. It crackled and popped as it was transformed and Edge fell to his knees as the magic smashed into the reflective barrier and leaked through it. The force was such that it drove him backwards, and he had a vague impression of being thrown into something. His back and legs exploded with pain, but the heat of the dragon's flame superseded that. Tongues of flame shot past and around him, a maelstrom of heat and destruction, and through the furnace, Edge caught a glimpse of Rydia. She was fully upright, standing in the eye of the attack, and looking none the worse for wear.  Her eyes were open, her posture rigid, and her face alert.

                Edge frowned, wondering what she was doing, as she lifted her arms and the dragon fire seemed to swirl around her. Her hair rose as well, like ribbons of green tossed by a golden wind, and she shimmered silver, then blue, encasing herself in an invocation that glimmered with living letters.

                Her voice sounded out of the madness, a sure, singular sound; summoning power and gathering it to herself.

                Edge stared, unsure of when this change had happened to her magic. This was magic of an entirely different order. Gone were the searching melodies of all she had cast before. Her previous spells had sounded infantile compared to this. In their place, was the calculated exactness he had witnessed in FuSoYa's practice—but perfected into art. Despite the heat of Bahamut's flame, goosebumps covered his skin.

                He was sure he was about to witness something that history had never witnessed before—a summoner fully come into her power.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                Rydia had been at war with her magic since coming to the moon. But as she stood here before the Hallowed Father, the lunar crystals cried out to her more clearly than ever before. What FuSoYa had harnessed for science, she listened to and wove into art. What flowed through her mind now was pure power--greater than song, and more terrible than silence.

                She had been given the power of the dragons—to defeat a dragon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

                Rydia stepped closer to Bahamut, her hands still raised. The glow of her spell surrounded her, protecting her from the dragon fire. She was smiling as the ancient letters coiled around her and then ignited, causing a blast so bright that Edge had to look away. A wave of energy threw him from his feet, and when he dared pull his hand from his face, he saw that Rydia had disappeared in a shimmer of heat. The inferno she had invoked, combated Bahamut's flame, and she was but a silhouette in its center, one flame within the other.

                The air whistled and whined, like steam confined to too small a space, and Edge felt the pressure down to the roots of his hair. Suddenly, the pressure burst and with another tremendous surge of light and heat, Bahamut was thrown backwards, lashing his tail for balance as his flame was extinguished by the violent force of Rydia's spell. Licks of flame dissipated into spirals of smoke and the cavern chamber was left dim by comparison.

                The entire place reeked of sulfur and blistered rock, but Rydia stood firmly in place, an island of unblemished floor amid a sea of glass. She glanced back at her companions, and Edge noticed the furious gleam in her eyes. There was something of a dragon there, a power locked within her eyes, and it took him aback.

                What spell had she cast that could have so impressed the Hallowed Father?

                Rydia returned her gaze to Bahamut, and the dragon ceased writhing to gaze down at her, thrumming in his throat, a note of contemplation.

                Eventually, he nodded his great horned head, lowering it so that his nose was directly in front of her face . "I see," he said in his low and dangerous voice, exhaling into her wild green hair. "Leviathan was right to bestow his blessing on such a one. She who hears the crystals."

                He closed his eyes and hummed, and Edge watched as Rydia also closed her eyes, resting her hand on the dragon's snout. It was as if they were sharing a conversation with their thoughts that no one else could hear.

                Bahamut breathed on her again, smoke swirling around her. "Yes, you will be the one who calls me to battle," he decreed, resting his chin on the top of her head.

                Rydia, to her credit, didn't shudder or flinch in the face of the dragon king. "You honor me," she murmured.

                Bahamut laughed, though it sounded like a roar. "You have taken my measure and I have taken yours. But do not think that I can be tamed, daughter of earth. I come when I wish, and I leave when I will."

                Rydia bowed and Bahamut transformed back into his hooded guise. "Go," he instructed them, retreating back. "Go with my blessing, and bring justice on the man responsible for so much evil."

                Edge didn't know when Rosa had walked past him, but she had somehow approached Rydia's side, guiding the summoner back toward the rest of them with arms hooked under the young woman's elbows.

                The fire and fury in Rydia's eyes had faded, and all Edge saw there now was exhaustion. Cecil had also approached, taking Rydia's other elbow as they turned and left the dragon's nest behind them.

                They had barely reached the bottom of the stairs descending from the platform when Rydia's strength finally failed her and she collapsed—all of her energy spent.

                Edge stared at her anew. He thought he'd known her well enough, and now he found he barely knew her at all.

                Just what _wasn't_ she capable of?


	29. Domo Arigatou Mr Roboto (Into the Giant)

_Arise, Dragon Tamer, arise._

_The field is set, the battle awaits._

_Our brethren scream, for this madman's scheme._

_Arise, Dragon Tamer, arise._

0-0-0

 

                Rydia opened heavy eyes, feeling as though she still heard the refrain of a song. A dream, perhaps. She had the uncomfortable realization that time had moved on without her when she saw Cecil sitting across a familiar tiled aisle from her. The lights of the Lunar Whale flickered and gleamed around them, and she glanced to either side, realizing she was leaning against the shell of one of the ship's pods.

                Cecil was leaning against a similar pod with his arms folded. His armor was absent, and his tangled platinum hair fell in hanks on either side of his face. He appeared frustrated, and he was gazing at Rydia with a furrow deeply etched in his brow.

                "Again?" Rydia asked.

                Cecil's first expression dissolved slightly; replaced by a smirk. "Again," he said.

                She blinked, trying to remember the events following the duel with Bahamut. "The flames…" she murmured.

                "Yes," he agreed. "FuSoYa has explained a bit about them."

                "I didn't—fail, did I?" she asked.

                He shook his head. "No, but FuSoYa was amazed," he trailed off, his lips arching downward into a frown. "He said he'd never seen a spell quite like the one you cast."

                "But I—" Rydia mused, her mind suddenly abuzz with the revelation of the spell she had cast in the end. "I used the words he taught me," she objected, looking at him directly.

                Cecil gave her a shrewd look in return. "He didn't seem to think so."

                Rydia opened her mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. It was too difficult to explain the truth.

                "What _was_ that spell, Rydia?" Cecil asked.

                "I'm not sure," she answered, feeling a name bubble to the front of her thoughts regardless. She hadn't known it at the time, but she recognized it now—the fiery furnace, the flame of the world's core—Flare.  

                "I'm worried that this new power you've found," Cecil began, carefully choosing his words. "Is more harm to you than good. You weren't yourself."

                Rydia raised her hands in front of her, turning them over, and seeing they were her own, undamaged. "I don't remember much after the battle," she reflected.

                "Is this the only way for you to cast magic?" he asked. "To use their spells?"

                "Better to have magic than not," she replied, flicking a wary glance in his direction.

                "The Lunar Crystals seem dangerous," he went on. "This magic seems to consume you entirely, not unlike a spell an old Sage once cast. You know how his story ended."

                Rydia felt suddenly uneasy. "My casting is not fueled by revenge," she pointed out. "I am not consumed by my magic."

                "How do you explain your state, then?" he asked curiously. "How do you explain your collapse?"

                "I'm unused to the tax of these incantations," she replied, making up excuses as she went. "They require more energy and concentration than before."

                Cecil gazed back at her, taking her measure. Rydia wondered if it wasn't only concern that he felt, but fear. Was he afraid of her? Were the others afraid of her? She and Edge had shared a similar conversation not too long ago…

                "Whatever power you've found, Rydia, please be careful," he told her.

                "Aren't I always?" she asked with a fleeting smile, taking a page from Edge's book while she was at it.

                "How do you feel?" Cecil asked after a moment.

                She grinned sheepishly when her rumbling stomach betrayed her. "Hungry."

                Cecil finally stood up, beckoning for her hand to pull her to her feet. "The others are waiting."

                When the two of them crossed through the doorway and into the main cabin of the Lunar Whale, Rosa and Edge were sitting on the stairs leading up to the bridge. Their packs were beside them, along with what was left of their food.

                Rosa stood when she saw the two of them, and hopped down the stairs to wrap Rydia in a firm embrace.

                "It took you longer to wake than we expected. Even after you were brought out of the pod," the white mage fussed over her.

                "I was tired," Rydia announced, extricating herself from Rosa's grip.

                "You're lucky you aren't dead," Edge remarked, barely looking at her.

                Rydia frowned in his direction and glanced up at FuSoYa who was controlling the ship. He caught her eye.

                "You've decided to join us, Dragon Tamer," FuSoYa announced.

                Rydia gave him a quizzical look at the use of this new title. "Dragon Tamer," she said, unconsciously combing her fingers through the frayed ends of her hair. "That's what they called me…."

                FuSoYa raised both brows, and she sensed the others' eyes on her. "'They'?" the Lunarian asked.

                "Yes, 'they'?" Edge seconded.

                Rydia realized the number of reasons for her friends to suspect her sanity had just increased. "I—" she fumbled for words. "—that's what the crystals called me."

                Her words were met with silence.

                "The crystals do not speak," FuSoYa pronounced.

                Rydia glanced at him, knowing this to be untrue. They had spoken to her through their own words, supplanting her previous incantations with their own. The Lunar Crystals were sentient in a way the Earth Crystals were not. How could he not know this?

                "Your inexperience is mistaking fantasy for reality," FuSoYa said. "The Crystals are merely a source of energy from which 'spells' and other such 'magic's' spring."  

                Rydia frowned, wrestling with this idea, but wondered if it was worth refuting.

                "You have won the Great Dragon's support, but do not lose yourself to delusion."

                Rydia clenched her jaw, annoyed at the Lunarian's egotism.

                "Where do we go from here?" she asked Cecil instead.

                "To your planet," FuSoYa replied on his nephew's behalf, deftly accelerating the ship's functions.

                "FuSoYa was explaining that the alignment between the moon and the earth is almost complete," Rosa said, tip-toeing around the conversation's earlier tension with this latest news.

                Rydia looked again at Cecil, whose face was grim. "We're already en route, aren't we?" she realized.

                He nodded. "We couldn't waste any time. The hours that we've been in flight, you've been in the pod, healing."

                "That's what it does—the pod?" she asked, surprised.

                FuSoYa made a grumbling sound in his throat. "It was designed to regulate the internal conditions of the body—to induce sleep, so that travel over long distances could be managed with minimal degradation."

                "What does it do to the mind?" Rydia wondered, turning toward him.

                "It stores your consciousness, allows a certain…dream-state, if you will."

                This information piqued her curiosity, but FuSoYa was not in a story telling mood.

                "No matter," FuSoYa said. "Your body has been repaired, and your strength is returned. We have Bahamut's blessing, and now we have a battle to engage."

                Rydia quickly grabbed a piece of bread out of Rosa's pack and nibbled on it before the nausea of what they were about to do stole her appetite.

                She glimpsed through the ship's windows, at the earth growing larger in her vision, and saw the tower glowing brightly on its island. It was nothing but a smudge of light amid swirling clouds from this distance, but she felt her heart drop at the sight.

                "I think you should have stayed in that pod," Edge muttered to her from a few feet away.

                She glanced at him, ashamed to admit she thought the same.

               

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Rydia had never experienced the Lunar Whale leaving the planet, and so was unprepared for its return. The turbulent event had her clutching railings and praying for the moment when the enormous contraption would finally cease moving.

                "Why does this feel worse than I remember," Rosa lamented, holding onto Cecil with white knuckles.

                "We're almost through the planet's atmosphere," FuSoYa informed them above the din of the engines and the rattling of the ship's external panels."

                Clouds swept past the windows of the bridge, glowing with heat as the ship barreled through. The Lunar Whale finally coasted for a moment, only for FuSoYa to reverse its thrusters and slow them down, fighting gravity in a long, painful dive.

                Rydia knew the moment they'd reached their destination, when the ship encountered interference from the tower. Sensors chimed and alarms went off, and the mysterious voice of the ship began alerting them to imminent concerns that neither Cecil nor FuSoYa felt any need to translate.

                Through the portholes along the side of the ship, Rydia could see mountains. She released her death grip on the railing beside her and walked toward the smaller windows, noticing Edge had joined her. They both looked out to the north. The colors of the landscape were muted, as the tower emitted a light that pulsed at regular intervals, seemingly draining the life from the world around it.    

                "Why aren't we closer?" Edge demanded, turning around to glance at their pilot.

                FuSoYa was frowning, poring over the ship's consoles and then looking out the windows.

                "The sequence is in its final phase," he informed them. "To get any closer means we'll be in direct alignment with the matter stream."

                "What?" Edge snapped, more annoyed than anyone else.

                "The ship would be torn apart," FuSoYa elaborated.

                "You're saying we're too late," Edge clarified.

                Cecil stared at his uncle. "We're too late?" he asked.

                Rosa gasped and Rydia's eyes were drawn back to the windows. A beam of light had fallen from the sky, piercing the clouds and searing the mountains of Eblan with its unearthly glow.

                "What the hell is that?" Edge demanded, alarmed.

                "The giant."

                The four of them turned to look at the Lunarian, when a shockwave rocked the ship, sending them all sprawling across the tiled floor.

                Rydia caught Rosa's elbow to her sternum and Cecil and Edge stumbled awkwardly into each other.

                "We have to fall back!" FuSoYa shouted above the alarms, steering the ship away from the tower and its mountains.

                "We have to get inside that tower!" Edge snarled, leaping to his feet.

                "The tower is no longer a problem—the giant is!"

                The farther they flew, the more apparent their situation became. Rydia saw a figure emerge out of the beam from the moon, a large humanoid shape plated in metal, and taller than any mountain she had ever seen.

                It raised enormous mechanical arms and flames erupted from their palms, spreading in an arc that set the mountains on fire.

                One jet of flame flew directly at the ship, and Rydia screamed as the Lunar Whale was sent off course, spiraling into a dive before FuSoYa corrected their descent and brought them closer to the ground.

                "That thing— _that_ is the giant?" Cecil balked.

                "It's enormous!" Rosa seconded with a horrified expression.

                "Dammit!" Edge swore, pounding a fist into the floor.

                Rydia glanced in the prince's direction, realizing that this was the second time he was watching his kingdom burn. She unconsciously reached out, her fingers brushing his, but he was too busy staring at the destruction beyond the ship's windows to notice.

                "We can't approach the tower with the giant barring our path," FuSoYa said gravely.

                "How are we supposed to stop that machine?" Cecil demanded.

                FuSoYa pursed his lips, his chin stuck out at a defiant angle. "We will have to—"

                "What is that?" Rosa asked sharply, pointing to the east.

                Numb with shock, Rydia's eyes drifted to the east. What could possibly be there that was more important than a plan to stop the Giant….?

                "Airships!" Rydia cried out in disbelief, instantly forgiving Rosa the interruption.

                "What can they hope to achieve against such a foe," FuSoYa remarked, eyeing the ships.

                "It's Cid!" Cecil said excitedly. "They're firing on the Giant!"

                All of them approached the windows, watching as the Giant was struck by a bombardment from the airship fleet and lurched to a stop, its torso twisting as it analyzed its new target.

                "Is there any way to hail your ships?" FuSoYa asked.

                Cecil was too stunned to answer, but FuSoYa proceeded without input, submitting commands on the ship's consoles until a hissing static sounded overhead.

                "Cecil?" Cid's voice called out with a tinny, nasally sound. "I'm assuming it's you aboard that monstrous ship?"

                There was silence for a minute until FuSoYa's voice replied. "This vessel is the Lunar Whale. Cecil and his companions are on board. To whom are we speaking?"

                Cecil climbed the stairs to the bridge and intercepted the communication device from FuSoYa.

                "Who _else_ would you be speaking to—it's Cid!" the engineer brayed. "Are all of you alive?"

                "We're alive, Cid," Cecil answered. "You've assembled the fleet?"

                "We assembled what you asked for," Cid chuckled, and then swore over the line as a loud concussive sound crackled through the speaker.

                Rydia, who was still watching events unfold outside of the windows, saw a jet of flame scorch its way in the direction of the airships like dragon fire. The fleet scattered and dove to avoid the blast, leaning at precarious angles until they righted themselves. Rydia's hands gripped the sill of the closest porthole, her heart pounding anxiously. A secondary blast—one that came from the opposite direction drew her eyes to the ground below. A lumbering formation of tanks was rolling steadily over the terrain.

                "Cecil?" Yang's voice crackled overhead.

                "Yang!" Cecil shouted back.

                "I'm not sure how this device is supposed to…can you hear me?"

                "We can hear you, Yang," Cecil assured him, sounding more baffled by the minute.

                "The Dwarves are with me, as are the Sylves," Yang told them over the communication link.

                Rydia was so startled, she barely heard the rest as Giott interrupted with a deep, throaty bellow.

                "We fight for the earth!" the dwarf king announced. "For our home, and the mother of us all! Lali-ho!"

                "Hey, don't forget about us!" a young spritely voice cried out over the static. It was a voice Rydia didn't recognize.

                "Our elder lifted the spell on us!" a girl's voice chimed.

                "The twins!" Cecil said in surprise.

                "This is not your burden to bear alone," the Elder of Mysidia said more evenly. "This is a battle for all who live and breathe upon this planet!"

                "Cecil, let me show you the courage you helped me find!" Edward's voice also added to the chorus.

                Rydia's eyes were pricked with tears to hear the voices of their companions rallying together. They had all arrived in the world's time of need.

                "They all came to fight," Cecil realized, absentmindedly holding the communication device as he  stared at the battlefield in the distance.

                "The Giant has staggered!" Rosa exclaimed hopefully.

                "Then this is our chance," FuSoYa said, flying the Lunar Whale in the direction of the fleet. "We can get inside the accursed thing!

                Edge gave the Lunarian a determined look. "So we can destroy whatever controls it from the inside?" he asked.

                "Not from this vessel," FuSoYa informed him. "It's too large a target for the Giant's weapons. We would need to board one of those smaller airships to find a way to penetrate the Giant."

                Cecil lifted the communication device to his mouth. "We're going to need your help, Cid!"

                There was a crackle and hiss overhead. "What was that?" the cantankerous engineer asked back.

                "Your help!" Cecil repeated.

                "Aye, what can I do?"

                FuSoYa grabbed the communication device. "We require your vessel."

                "Cecil…" Cid said, sounding put-out.

                "Please, Cid, we need to borrow your ship."

                "Can you set down somewhere?" Cid asked.

                "Yes. Meet us there."

                FuSoYa flew as close as he dared to the Giant before altering the Lunar Whale's controls so that the ship began a steady vertical drop toward the ground. Once the ship had landed, he was away from the bridge and striding for the ship's exit. The rest of them followed, taking up their weapons and scant supplies.

                On the ground, the smell of burning timber and scorched earth drifted down on the wind from the north, further churned up by the propellers from Cid's flagship as he set down nearby and hastily threw down the gangplank.

                They ran aboard, not wanting to waste time, and found themselves in the midst of a frenzy of activity.

                Engineers were running in every direction; loading ordinance and securing ropes, while Cid stood at the helm like a general directing troops.

                FuSoYa headed in his direction, his blue robes swishing furiously around his feet.

                "Take us to the Giant's mouth!" he ordered, much to Cid's bafflement.

                Cid narrowed his eyes at the interloper and then looked at Cecil. "And who's this whitehair think he is, ordering me about on my own ship?" he demanded.

                "His name is FuSoYa," Cecil explained, following a few steps behind his uncle. "He's from the moon."

                "The moon," Cid repeated flatly, staring suspiciously at the Lunarian—at his costume, and also the exoticness of his features.

                "We've no time," FuSoYa said briskly, pointing. "Can you get us near enough to get aboard the machine?"

                Cid exploded with a bellow. "Can fish swim? Who do you think you're talking to!"

                Cid nodded to his chief engineer and spun the ship's wheel so that they were on a direct course to the Giant, leaving the rest of the fleet behind them.

                "Everyone, direct your fire at the Giant's arms and keep away from the mouth!" Cid shouted over the communication device.

                "Best hold on tight!" Cid called out to the rest of them, as he flew them closer to the automaton, dodging fire and fiends that had risen as a swarm to intercept the ship.

                "Golbez' minions at their finest!" Cid laughed maniacally. "Fire the cannons!"

                Explosions on either side of the ship sent shrapnel into the wings of the fiends, tearing them to misted shreds. The winged fiends toppled over each other, screeching, as the wounded fell on the uninjured, knocking each other out of the way as the airship streaked past at breakneck speed.

                Rydia clutched onto the railing, looking over her shoulder at Cid. His piloting was just as frightening as she remembered.

                "Before I forget!" Cid called out, pointing to one of his subordinates. "Get that thing the old coot wanted us to bring along!"

                The crewman ran below deck, arriving a few minutes later with a long bundle wrapped in leather.

                "Cecil, the sword the smith promised you!" Cid shouted down to Cecil on the deck, who accepted and unwrapped the proffered item with a perplexed expression. "He seemed to think now might be a good time to put it to use!"

                 The newly forged sword was beautiful in the light, but now was not the time to admire its handiwork, and Cecil sheathed it as Cid dodged another band of fiends.

                Cid flew them directly toward the Giant's mouth and had the ship hover as close as he could without damaging it.

                "Now's our chance!" FuSoYa shouted, positioning himself where there was a gap in the railing.

                "Jump? From this distance?" Rosa quailed, staring at the Lunarian with wide eyes.

                "Amateurs," FuSoYa complained, gesturing them all together. "Link hands."

                Rosa clutched Rydia's hand and Rydia glanced at Edge before he reluctantly offered her his own.

                FuSoYa chanted the teleport spell, enveloping all of them in magic that swept them swiftly off of the deck of the airship and onto the platform that comprised the Giant's mouth. The automaton jolted and shook with each bombardment from the tanks and airships below, and the five of them fought to keep their footing while FuSoYa inspected a panel on the Giant's exterior.

                He slid a few slender stones across a console and a door opened, sliding into a pocket.

                "Come," he said, beckoning them within.

                Machinery churned and whirred on the inside of the Giant, and lights streamed along wires and panels, carrying information from one end of the Giant to the other.

                The five of them paused when what had appeared to have been parts of the machinery came to life; legs unfolding from metal boxes and eye stalks rising to inspect the humans.

                " _Intruder. Intruder. Intruder. Un-authorized humans aboard juggernaut,"_ a floating scanner chimed—just before a well-aimed Thundaga melted its circuits to liquid metal on the floor. 

0-0-0-0-0

                There were moments when lucidity would enter Kain's mind like a merciless hot coal and burn the rest of his consciousness bare. They were frail, dangerous things, these moments, and they struck when he could least afford the distraction. Memories of the life he had left behind. 

                Friends—he could picture them now and again. Yes, he had had them once. They were on a doomed mission he was no longer following, and _her_ face was among them, as well. Her fingers were twined with those of another, and with her other hand, she was pushing Kain away. A tease.

                Kain woke with a jolt, the memories retreating to the back of his mind as if icy fingers had pried them there. There was little time left to the night, and there was little reason to stay abed, so Kain drew on his clothing and armor, and left the sparse quarters he had been allocated within the tower.

                He had little to fear in the absence of the Archfiends, but he always traveled armed and kept his spear at his side, knowing how Golbez's other appointed lieutenants viewed his return. A turncoat twice turned was friend to none.

                Kain straightened his back, slipping into his old role. Upon his return, he had been tasked with monitoring the crystal manifold. The crystals had been systematically fitted into the apparatus that harnessed and focused their energy into the pulse that shielded the tower. Kain had not been told the specific details of this process, but he was aware of its affiliation with the twin moon and its importance to the master's plans.

                Golbez was conducting a summoning of a sort, one that required an uninterrupted flow of power through the crystals, and one that hinged entirely upon the perfect alignment of the manifold. If there was tampering, Kain was responsible for reporting—and correcting it—by any means necessary.

                Kain walked around the outside of the manifold, glimpsing through several inches of glass as ribbons of light spread like frayed webs from one crystal to the next. They were filaments that tangled and reacted with each other, fusing to cause sparks in colors so fierce, Kain's eyes had trouble identifying them. The manifold was enormous and self-contained, and emitted a whine that Kain could tolerate for only a few minutes before he had to leave the surrounding room.

                Kain had never been a student of magic, nor could he claim to understand it; but he found himself imagining that the crystals themselves were screaming in this unnatural configuration.  

                Closing the heavy maintenance door behind him, he sighed. The crystals were simply tools.

                There were no irregularities to report, and as such, his concerns were numbed to insignificance.

                He returned to the main corridor, ignoring the dark looks from Golbez's other vassals. They were all traitors to their kings and countries, some more human than others, and Kain was one of them—but was not.  

                Some took off down adjacent corridors, feigning business, and others crossed their arms at his approach.

                Kain strode past them, into the room Golbez had deemed his center of operations.

                A woman with long copper hair tied back in a rope braid was just standing as he entered. Yet another declaration of fealty to the lord of darkness, Kain mused. She was one of the few humans Golbez tolerated as company among his legions of monsters, and Kain felt a flash of jealousy at knowing he was only one of many. 

                The woman bumped shoulders with him as she passed him by, affording him a single pointed look before leaving with effortless, cat-like strides.

                "What is your report," Golbez said without preamble, waving him lazily into the room.

                Kain bristled at the cold welcome. "The manifold is undamaged and functioning normally."

                "Good," Golbez acknowledged with a nod, turning his back to the dragoon to study a screen that showed the alignment of the planet and its moons.

                "Was there anything else?" Kain asked, desperate to be of use.

                "Would you care to be present when your friends are put to their deaths?" Golbez asked, placing a calculated look over his shoulder.

                "Absolutely," Kain answered.

                "Dismissed," Golbez told him with another flippant wave of his hand.

                Kain gave a curt bow and left the room, returning to the corridor where the crowds had thinned.

                The alignment of the moon with the tower was nearly complete, and there would soon be an ending to everything the world had known. 

                In the meantime, those who had pledged themselves loyal to Golbez would ensure that nothing interfered with those plans. Kain tightened the grip he held on his spear, proceeding down the corridors that were his to guard. He would see to it especially that Cecil was not one such interference.   

0-0-0-0-0-0

                "Why was this Giant built?" Cecil demanded, removing his blade from another stilt-legged drone as it sizzled with sparks from ruined wires.

                "We had no way of knowing what we might find on another planet," FuSoYa explained, out of breath from casting. "We built the Giant as a way to clear large areas of debris and to level terrain. And, of course, to reduce the threat from hostile life forms."

                "How convenient that it's now doing that on an inhabited island," Edge added angrily, only a few steps behind them, as he kicked a drone's head out of his way. "It isn't as if this was a kingdom that was once home to thousands."

                FuSoYa's expression became grim. "It is unfortunate, but dwelling on it will not solve our immediate problem. We must reach the giant's core if we want to preserve what is left of this land, and before the Giant widens its path of terror."

                "What operates the Giant?" Rosa asked.

                "The Giant is controlled by a Central Processing Unit located in its belly. It is programmed to direct the Giant's trajectory and to monitor its internal systems."

                "So Golbez can use this to level any kingdom he wishes while never having to soil his hands?" Edge seethed.

                "That is the idea, yes," FuSoYa answered, pointing to another stairwell. "And it would seem he has released a swarm of drones to hinder us."

                Edge threw a shuriken into the eye stalk of another drone the moment it came into view, causing its laser to aim wide. "How exactly do we disable its Central Processing Unit?" he asked, drawing a single katana to slice through another drone.

                "We should focus on reaching it first," FuSoYa retorted, fluidly speaking a spell that sluiced directly through the armor of a mechanical horse and rider. The thundaga spell bore through the floor as well, damaging the tiles that lined the catwalk so that they sizzled and whined as the five of them hurried past.

                Laser bearing fiends plagued them along several levels as they worked their way downward, tearing apart the floor grating and snapping cables. Catwalks lurched and hung precariously, causing them to jump from one platform to the next.

                Rydia glanced downward only once, trying not to entertain the possibility of falling onto parts of the machinery in each compartment.

                They kept running—along narrow bypasses and past panels lined with tubes that ran vertically down the neck of the Giant.

                "Is there anything we can do to interrupt its weapons?" Cecil asked, squeezing through a narrow access that was choked with criss-crossing pipes.

                "To do that, we would need to separate, and there would be no guarantee that we would succeed, let alone, what drones would be set to guard the passages," FuSoYa said, squeezing after Cecil until the path widened again.

                " _Intruder—intruder—intruder_ ," a nauseatingly familiar alarm sounded from ahead.

                "Rosa!" Cecil shouted, yanking her down by the hand as a beam shot where she had just been standing.

                "Damn these drones!" FuSoYa exclaimed, sending thundaga blazing into three of them at once.

                So many events happened simultaneously, that Rydia, who had been following Rosa, barely realized she was watching them unfold from the grated floor.

                "Rydia?" Edge asked, shaking her shoulder to get her to look at him. She licked her dry lips, too stunned to form words, let alone wonder why he was shaking her.

                "Rosa, we need you," Edge snapped urgently, catching Rydia's eye for a brief moment. She didn't know what had happened, but by the look on his face, she had taken more than a glancing blow. 

                "Crystals," Rosa murmured, inching her way toward Rydia while spells and ordinance were exchanged overhead. 

                "That—bad?" Rydia choked out, noticing an alarming gurgle that had crept up her throat.

                "Lie still," Rosa ordered gently, weaving words with magic, sending a glow from her finger tips into Rydia's wounded side.

                Edge was no longer near her, and neither was Cecil, but she heard swords shearing metal and the pulses from laser cannons. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the odd discomfort of muscle and vein being sewn back together by threads of magic, but then grunted when all of Rosa's weight fell on her unexpectedly.

                Rydia hissed from pain, trying to push the other woman off of her, discovering much to her alarm, that she was covered in the white mage's blood.

                "Rosa," she whispered, hoping for a response and receiving none.

                Rydia grunted and finally shoved Rosa's limp form off of her. She propped herself up with her hands and smelled burnt flesh and scorched metal.

                The enclosed passage before them was flooded with drones, and Cecil and Edge were pinned down, trying to stay out of reach from their electrified lances that paralyzed and stunned.

                FuSoYa wasn't much help, clutching onto the catwalk railing several feet away from her with blood speckling his robes.

                Rydia closed her eyes and breathed, blocking out the pain from her half-healed injury, and latched on to a different feeling instead. Fury. Exactly what she had told Cecil earlier that she wouldn't do.

                The Lunar Crystals responded in kind, supplying the words she required as gentle suggestions. These were not the words FuSoYa had taught her, nor did they promise the same result. These words promised far greater power, and she let them color and paint the meaning of the original incantation however they wished. FuSoYa's clipped and efficient spell became rebellious, like a captured bird seeking freedom, and spread its wings.

                Rydia spoke the song of the spell so quickly that time seemed to slow down. A spiral of glittering letters took shape around her just as they had before Bahamut, glowing brightly as each phrase was completed and the harmonies aligned.  

                Thundaga rained down in a curtain, like a deluge of light and heat and energy that emblazoned everything in its path. It jumped from one drone to the next, like a living thing, until not one remained.

                Drones fell to the floor in shimmering sparks, the metal of their cases melting into bubbling puddles on the floor.

                Cecil looked at her from over his shoulder, surprised, and Rydia likewise stared back at him. Finally, the paladin frowned, shaking his head, and hastily worked his way back to the three wounded mages.

                Cecil knelt beside Rosa, prodding her before finally turning her over. Rosa was limp and lifeless, and he bent over to press his lips to her forehead, whispering what Rydia could only assume was an incantation to revive her.

                She sensed the spell take effect without looking, hearing Rosa's first staggered breaths escape her lips; but she was too preoccupied with the slaughtered machinery to pay attention to much else. Edge was picking through the scattered drones, bending to retrieve what she realized were spent shuriken. He dropped the ones he found into the pouch on his belt, though he looked annoyed as he surveyed the melted puddles, finding nothing amid the slag that remotely resembled what he was looking for.

                While the others were being tended, Rydia drunkenly rose to her feet, wanting to see what her spell had done. She still felt power lingering beneath her skin, potential energy waiting to be discharged. She stumbled across the grated catwalk until she was standing a few feet from Edge.

                "All of them," she muttered, amazed at herself. Never had Thundaga been so potent under her command, save maybe once during the battle with Odin.

                Edge stepped into her line of sight, frowning.

                "Your eyes—" he began, stopping himself when she lost her balance and he lunged forward to catch her.

                "What do you—" she mumbled, falling against him and clutching onto his elbows.

                "Idiot, you're not even healed," Edge complained, bracing her upright with his hands while she rested her head on his shoulder.  

                "What did you mean about my eyes," she repeated, tilting her head to look up at him.

                He glanced back at her, saying nothing while he attempted to shift her weight into a different position. "Steady," he told her, ignoring the question.

                "I'm fine," she protested.

                "So I should let go of you, then," he retorted, sounding exasperated.

                Rydia considered his suggestion and pressed her face deeper into the soft part of his shoulder. "Maybe not," she decided.

                 "Is there anyone able to take care of this one?" Edge called over her head to the group behind them. "I don't want to move her."

                Rydia glanced over her shoulder at Rosa; who, though healed, looked too dazed to stand. Instead it was Cecil who came to offer help.

                "I can travel," Rydia insisted, still feeling drunk with power.

                "You're bleeding," Edge pointed out, helping ease her to the floor so Cecil could take a look at her wound.

                She cried out, gritting her teeth, and glared at Edge as if her pain was his fault.

                He let out a forced sigh, looking for support from Cecil.

                "No, Rydia," the paladin said soundly. "You won't be traveling anywhere for a few minutes."

                Rydia tolerated the healing, but found herself wanting to be on her feet immediately; unconsciously tapping a finger on the tile below her. She was excited by this new development. The Lunarian spells coupled with human emotion—the crystals could provide an endless tide of power to do whatever she wished of them. When Cecil had finished his incantations and returned to Rosa and FuSoYa, Rydia looked over at Edge who was still kneeling beside her.

                "What was it you said about my eyes?" she asked, now clearer-headed.

                He sighed, looking back at her as if he hardly knew her. "They weren't exactly—your own," he explained.

                She frowned, uncertain what he really meant by that. "Do you still see that now?" she asked.

                He gazed directly into her eyes and she blushed. "No," he answered, perplexed. "They're back to normal."

                He broke eye contact and she exhaled slowly, relieved, waiting for the others to catch up to them.

                "Ready—or would you like to show off some more?" Edge asked suddenly, offering her his arm with a look of admonishment.

                She reluctantly accepted his hand, glaring, and allowed him to pull her to her feet again.

                "The drones are likely to increase as we approach the core," FuSoYa informed them, stepping gingerly over the puddles.

                 "Maybe we should let Rydia go first," Edge suggested as the five of them passed through the passage.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0

                The tower's alarms all went off at once, relaying information in a language Kain had no reference for understanding.

                His patrol had been cut short when waves of drones had emerged from their storage compartments and walked in military rows toward the transporter rooms. It was a terrifying sight to behold, and Kain flattened himself against a corridor wall, watching as the machines walked past by the hundreds in all shapes and sizes.

                His frustration at being caught unaware, was quickly replaced by the realization that the moon's alignment had finally been achieved. Kain followed the drones at a distance on their march to the transporter rooms, hoping that the abandonment of his post would go unnoticed.

                One by one the drones mounted the platforms, being whisked away to unknown coordinates. Kain watched until the lines thinned and eventually disappeared altogether, before he approached the transporter console to view their destination.

                An image flashed across the screen—that of a mechanical giant with a grid of lines and words indicating specific points of access to the machine. Kain knew this to be the Giant of Babil he had been told about, and the drones, its mechanical army.

                Armored footsteps from the hallway startled him, and Kain crouched behind the consoles to avoid being seen away from his post, feeling foolish about the entire affair.

                "My lord, do you require anything else?" a female voice inquired as the footsteps entered the room.

                "The drones are in place, and the Giant has been successfully retrieved," Golbez' voice answered distractedly. "If the intelligence out of Baron was correct, the fools are trying to raise a resistance. Ensure that they do not succeed. My legions are at your command."

                There was a brief pause. "What about Highwind, my lord?"

                "He is no longer of use," Golbez said shortly.

                "Understood, my lord," the woman purred, her voice saturated with an unpleasant sort of anticipation.

                "I leave the operations of this base under your control," Golbez told the woman, changing the coordinates of the transporter before stepping onto the platform.

                A flicker of light accompanied the transporter's activation as Golbez was whisked to some other place, and the woman waited a full minute before she left the room to attend to her duties with soft footfalls. Kain waited a few minutes more until he was sure the room was vacant, before emerging from his hiding place.

                _Expendable._

                Betrayal fused with bruised expectations, and Kain removed his helmet, prepared to throw it furiously onto the tiled floor.

                But as he looked down at his helmet, his eyes catching their own reflection in the curve of the metal, his hands shook.

                He had been _chosen._

                He had retrieved the crystals by his master's commands. He had done violence in his master's name. But now—here at the end of all things, Golbez had declared him unfit for service and supplanted him with a new pawn. This victory was supposed to have been Kain's as well. The new world was supposed to be his world as well.

                _No._  

                Kain glanced at the new coordinates Golbez had entered, and saw it was the remote access control chamber. From that room, with consoles that answered to Golbez' touch alone, he could control the Giant's movements remotely. Without the Crystals' energy flowing through the Tower, amplifying its power, however….

                Striding down the winding Tower corridor, Kain headed for the one place he was sure would garner his master's attention.

                The crystal manifold.

               

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Drones plummeted to the ground on either side of Rydia, peppering her hair with sparks. The clothes beneath her leather armor were mottled with holes, and her skin was singed. 

                She had, at Edge's suggestion, taken the lead to cast magic in violent bursts, while he and Cecil covered her advance. Energy surged through her, propelling her footsteps.

                She focused on any thought that entered her mind, on any situation that caused her fear or anger. She spoke words with her mouth, but their meaning and intent was changed long before her lips. This strategy had morphed her spells into wild, feral creations.

                She manipulated lightning, commanding it like a hunting hound. It sought out and destroyed drones on either side of the catwalk, acting as if it had a mind of its own.          

                "We're almost to the core!" FuSoYa exclaimed, bringing up the rear.

                This quickened their steps, as they sprinted down the service passages that ran circular to the Giant's operating systems and gears.

                "This machine is the most impressive clockwork soldier I've ever had the displeasure of dismantling," Edge remarked, climbing a ladder and tossing shuriken in two well aimed arcs at Searching Drones.

                The covered passages eventually gave way to broader compartments. The catwalks were more exposed, suspended over gears and pistons that rose and fell with the Giant's movements.

                Rydia kept her magic poised on her tongue, sensing a glow at her fingertips, and was amazed that she had been able to maintain a trance for so long. Her magic stood ready to be released with one single word, so long as the emotion or thought she'd honed in on remained clear and palpable.

                FuSoYa walked beside her, staring at her in amazement. "Here, I thought to teach you ourways thinking they were the only way," he said quietly. "I had thought your methods to be inferior, but you interpret this power in ways we never thought to explore."

                "I have always been myself," Rydia answered, distracted enough by his interruption, that her trance fizzled out and the energy left her like sweat evaporating from skin. It was only in her magic's absence that Rydia discovered how exhausted she had become and how little she remembered of the last few hours.

                FuSoYa reluctantly shook his head. "Tell me….the crystals—how did you know to cast that magic?"

                Rydia pinched her eyes shut, staving off a headache, and finally turned her head to look at him; realizing he meant the duel with Bahamut . "I listened to them," she explained for the second time.

                "I can assure you, the crystals have no voices—not in the way you are thinking," FuSoYa argued.

                "They speak your language," she disagreed.

                The Lunarian agitatedly cleared his throat, like that of a teacher preparing to school his student. "They were programmed as such," he said.

                "No, it's more than that," Rydia said, shaking her head. "These have a consciousness."

                FuSoYa pursed his lips, annoyed by her answer. "It seems as though you've accessed…no," he interrupted himself, rubbing his forehead with his index finger and thumb.

                "Accessed what?" Rydia asked stubbornly.

                FuSoYa narrowed his eyes at her. "The core programming of the crystals," he answered. "Dormant quadrants normally partitioned off."

                "I don't understand," she complained.  

                "You wouldn't," he said dismissively. "In fact, I've no idea how you did it."

                She waited with anticipation for more.

                "What you're sensing—" FuSoYa began and then stopped himself again. "It is an elaborate program."

                "They feel like they have a will of their own," Rydia objected, having learned more by the hour about the Lunar Crystals than she'd realized.

                "They are—"

                Rydia waited again, eyeing him.

                "—Remnants," he concluded. "Of the ones we could not bring with us."

                Rydia frowned, sensing fatigue blurring the edges of her vision and dulling her hearing, and wondered if she had heard him correctly. "Your people…?" she asked.

                "The knowledge and history of our people is bound to those crystals. What better way to preserve a race than through a power that will outlive us?"

                "But the magic—what I've cast—"

                He shook his head. "Will eventually return to its source," he explained. "The Crystals are clever tools. They create a network, a ceaseless loop . They balance, check, and stabilize each other. Magic that is cast, eventually cycles back to its source. You have not damaged them."

                FuSoYa then studied her with a shrewd eye. "The Eidolons, however, are an anomaly. They are beings capable of feeding off of the crystals' energy, but transforming that energy into an unknown form. Your planet, for reasons I don't understand, has not only drained the crystals of functionality, but evolved a peculiar co-dependence on them."

                "The Eidolons are interrupting the cycle of magic?" Rydia asked, finding this new information alarming.

                "I believe so, yes. And whether because of them or some other event, rampant magic has led to a secondary evolution on your planet. The fiends…and a new breed of human."    

                "What are you saying, exactly?" Rydia asked, aghast.

                "That you walk a strange path, Summoner. Neither here nor there," he answered. "You are a mage in one sense, yet you walk amid the beasts of the veil."

                "Is either of those a bad thing?" she asked quietly.

                "That remains to be seen. Caught between these two paradigms, you may undergo a transformation of your own. All I know is that no energy is ever _truly_ lost, Summoner. It simply changes," FuSoYa replied evenly. "It would be interesting to--"

                "Stop!" Edge's voice cut in from ahead.

                Rydia's gaze was pinned to the front of the group in an instant, wondering what he had seen and where she was needed.

                "Go back!" he shouted, waving furiously to the other side of the suspended catwalk.

                The others didn't question the order, running for an anchored walkway, but Rydia held her ground, preparing another spell.

                Edge sprinted toward her, stumbling as a billowing cloud of flames rocked the catwalk behind him. Smoke choked the passageway, and Rydia squinted, unable to make out the lithe ninja's form let alone the source of the flames.

                The smoke thinned in uneven patches, and Rydia saw glistening metal plates and the vague form of a dragon behind it.

                "Down!" Edge snapped, appearing out of the haze and yanking her down to the floor as a strange hissing sound preempted the eruption of another spurt of flame. It snarled down the length of the catwalk, heating the metal to cherry red. Rydia stared over her shoulder, feeling sweat bead her skin from the heat. The catwalk groaned and then snapped, one of its cables breaking at the joint. She and Edge lurched with it, falling into the railing that, while not glowing with heat, still retained it. Rydia cried out in pain as the cables branded into her shoulder and back.

                She screamed a series of words together, letting her pain direct them, and felt the Crystals' power mingle with her thoughts, unleashing blizzaga on the catwalk.

                "Shi—" Edge bit off a curse, noticing a split-second too late, what she had done.

                The spell spiraled through the grated catwalk and along its cables, quick-freezing the metal. It creaked and popped, like brittle china, and Rydia felt some relief from the oozing wounds on her back with the on-rush of cold.

                When Edge suddenly wrapped her with his arms, anchoring them to the side railing, she too realized what she had done.

                The remaining far cables snapped, damaged by the extreme temperatures, and the catwalk suddenly fell to one side, like a pendulum.      

                Rydia felt the sickening sensation of weightlessness, as they swung at the mercy of the metal contraption. It lurched, unchecked, and plowed into glass. The impact loosened Edge's grip on the railing, sending them both sprawling gracelessly into a small room.

                Rydia remained still for several minutes, laying flat on her back, too afraid to move. Everything felt broken or on fire.

                She heard Edge slowly getting up somewhere behind her, scattering pieces of glass.

                "Blizzaga?" he seethed, and she winced, hearing the anger in his voice.

                She slowly sat up, crying out in pain, and glanced up at him. "I wasn't thinking!" she shot back, hissing as glass dug into her palms.

                "Yes, there’s been a lot of that lately," he scoffed.

                "I'm sorry—what else did you expect me to do?" she demanded.

                "Run!" He snapped. "Did you think you could singlehandedly defeat this thing? You're not infallible, Rydia. I don't care how powerful your magic is."

                "I said I was sorry!" she insisted.

                He glared and hopped over part of the twisted catwalk toward a door on the other side.

                "This is exactly the kind of bullshit that first years' pull," he muttered to himself, pulling at the broken control panel and twisting its cables until he touched two snapped ends and caused the door's lock to override.

                There was a great deal of noise in the large chamber they had plummeted out of moments before, and Rydia noticed flashes of light from dragon flame, as it reflected off of the scattered pieces of glass around her.

                "Are the two of you alright?" Cecil shouted down to them, sounding harried.

                "We're alive!" Rydia shouted back.

                "Debatable," Edge grumbled, pulling on the door until it opened, and then casting an annoyed look in Rydia's direction. "Can you move?"

                "We'll find our way down to you!" Cecil called out to them again, his voice lost in the sound of a dragon's mechanical roar.

                Rydia grimaced, prying herself up from the floor. The burns on her back would have to be borne until they intercepted Rosa, but she decided it was manageable. She stumbled after Edge, gingerly climbing over what was left of the catwalk and through the narrowly opened door.

                Edge walked quickly, and Rydia followed him at a distance, trying to ignore the irritating sensation of her oozing burns, and focused instead on placing one foot in front of the other.

                They followed the circular corridor, searching for some kind of staircase or lift, but found none.

                A small group of drones appeared around a curve, and Edge drew one sword, cutting through them with a series of quick forms. He used his blade to slice through the eye stalks of the drones before they could attack, leaving them to swivel around in confusion.

                Rydia frowned, realizing he had left them for her to finish off, and began to chant. She had little emotion or energy left, certainly nothing to fuel a trance, and relied on the words FuSoYa had taught her. She half-heartedly blazed her own path through the damaged drones, feeling that her magic had been bound in a mechanical, unnatural way—that these studied words were the chains that bound her magic to her will.

                The drones fell into piles of scrap, and Edge had barely slowed down to assist, let alone care how she had fared. He remained sullen and silent, and after a while, Rydia became annoyed.

                "Are you not going to speak to me?" she asked bitterly, speaking to the back of his head.

                He gave her a withering look over his shoulder, and she crossed her arms, giving him an equally dark look.

                "Can we not even fight beside each other, anymore?" she asked.

                Edge refused to acknowledge the question, more moody than usual.

                "What _is_ it with you?" she hissed at him as they briskly left bulkhead after bulkhead behind them.

                Edge ignored this too, adjusting his footing as a jolt in the machinery momentarily lurched them sideways. Finally he looked at her.

                "Who _are_ you?" he snapped back.

                Rydia staggered. 

                "What are you talking about?" she demanded, feeling the beginnings of an old argument returning.

                "Whatever mage—summoner—you're adapting into, bears little resemblance to you," he said. "You defeated Bahamut with magic I've never seen; that even that fussy Lunarian hadn't seen. What power are you playing with?"

                Rydia recalled the out of body experience that battle had been. She remembered the sensation of Flare's power flowing through her.

                "A spell I didn't learn from any book," she retorted.

                "You've started to act like someone possessed," he complained.

                "Are you saying that I've become a pawn of Zemus--?" Rydia asked heatedly.

                He narrowed his eyes at her. "Drunk on your own power? Desiring the highest order of spells? It’s not that much of a leap, is it."

                Rydia recalled their conversation in Mysidia, feeling as if it had taken place months ago and not mere weeks.

                "I would never have learned them in time," Rydia explained, fidgeting with her robes as she walked. "To learn from pages and by recitation, it would have taken months—years."

                "What exactly did FuSoYa teach you," Edge wanted to know, probing for answers.

                "He taught me the words to the spells I already knew."

                Edge made a strange expression, disbelieving. "What about the rest?"

                Rydia arched a brow, staring back at him with equal intensity. "The rest of what?"

                "It was Quake, wasn't it?" he asked evenly. "The spell you had so much trouble with in the Underworld, yet you cast it so precisely on the Lunar caverns."

                "That was…"

                "Without the help of the old man," he pointed out. "So what was it?"

                Rydia crossed her arms again. "I already told you," she huffed. "I listened to the crystals, and they spoke through me."

                Edge stopped walking to turn completely around. "Spoke _through_ you," he repeated, incredulously.

                "Yes," she said, going slightly pale. "They provided the words that I needed."

                "And Bahamut?" he asked.

                "I only spoke the words FuSoYa taught me," she lied.

                Edge shook his head, grinning darkly. "Liar." 

                Rydia bristled at the accusation.

                "You were casting magic with words you'd never used before—with words FuSoYa never taught you."

                "How would you—"

                Edge pointed to his ears. "You know better than to ask me that."

                Rydia breathed out sharply through her nose. "I don't need his words, after all," she admitted. "His spells…they're efficient and powerful, but they barely go beyond the surface of what the Lunar Crystals can do."

                Edge shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "You decided you knew better."

                "I can handle this," she argued.

                "That last spell damn near killed you." Edge said irately.

                "I can control it," she insisted.

                "Can you?" he asked.

                "FuSoYa has expressed no concern," she volleyed, feeling color rise to her cheeks. Fighting enemies was one thing, but arguing with a friend was another entirely.

                Edge made a face, looking at her with disappointment. "He is a man of science,” he said. “He wouldn't care if the furnace of the underworld devoured you, so long as he could learn something from it."               

                "Then why are you concerned—my magic has saved your skin more often than I can count."

                "Because if you’re doing what I think you’re doing, you’re placing yourself in more danger than you realize.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” she asked, perplexed.

“When you cast Blizzaga, what thought was on your mind at that precise moment?” he asked.

“I don’t know—anger, pain, fear” she answered.

He sighed.

“You’re trancing,” he realized. “I _know_ this magic, Rydia. I didn't recognize it at first, and the Lunarian spells were troublesome enough, but this is not magic to play games with. It’s powerful—and dangerous."

                She narrowed her eyes at him. "How would you—"

                "You're feeding your spells with emotion, with your own energy," he interrupted her.

                "Isn't that how you cast your magic?" she scoffed, balling her hands into fists. "Hypocrite."

                He grimaced at the accusation. "It's a powerful fuel, yes, but without focus, it does whatever it wants," he said, speaking the words as if he had said them many times before.

                "You sound rehearsed," she observed.

                "You weren't wrong," he admitted, beginning to walk again. "But what you cast by incantation, is a skill my people spend our entire lifetimes trying to duplicate. The closest we ever come is through trance and meditation. It is unreliable at best, deadly at worst. Our magic comes from here," he said, placing his hand over his heart.

                "You seem able to control it well enough. If you can, why can't I?" she asked.

                He caught her eye just then, and she was stunned to see he might actually provide her answer.

                "Your source," he said matter-of-factly. "I could never hope to rival the powers you have access to at the tip of your talented tongue."

                "You were born with magic," Rydia realized, keeping up with him.

                Edge sighed. "Our magic answers to no crystals and to no other master but ourselves."

                Rydia stared at him. "Your people are—“

                "An interesting sample of breeding," he replied curtly. "One I'm sure FuSoYa would love to study and add to his collection."

                Rydia set her jaw.           

                "Our magic can be volatile," he went on. "But nowhere near as volatile as yours. You have the crystals, a limitless energy source. Where your thoughts apply that energy…you have more destructive power in one misspoken word than this entire giant has in the palm of its hands."

                "You're afraid of me," she ventured.

                "I'm afraid of what might happen to you if you continue to pursue this level of magic," he answered.

                "What are you saying, exactly?"

                "You may give too much of yourself that you can't take back," he warned. "You're a mage, Rydia. You were never meant to wield magic this way. In fact, I didn’t know mages _could_."

                Rydia had no time to continue their argument, sprinting ahead to chant Thundaga at a drone that had skittered into view.

                Once the hallway was empty again, she looked back at Edge. "You said you know this magic," she tested him. "You know its nature, so what could happen if I lose control?"

                He met her with an even stare. "You'll get yourself killed,” he said simply, and then, as an afterthought, added: “And you know how I feel about being left with the old man.”

0-0-0-0-0-0

 

                Halfway to the Crystal manifold, Kain's footsteps faltered. Golbez' attentions were fixed elsewhere, and a moment of sharp lucidity pierced Kain's mind.

                His own suppressed thoughts swam to the surface, recalling conversations from days past and hours earlier.

                The crystal manifold. He had been going there—why? To anger his master? To sabotage his master's plans?

                _Expendable._

Kain practically laughed, remembering how sorely he had felt the remark. Now back to his senses, it rang hollow. It may have been his own damn weakness that had led him back to this place, but he had more pride than this.

                His original motives had been infantile, fueled by childish jealousy and the demand for his master's attention; but regardless of what his manipulated mind had conjured, it was a sound plan.

                Sabotage the manifold. Force Golbez to abandon his sanctuary in the tower and take command of the Giant itself. He couldn't possibly control two places at once, giving Cecil another chance to strike while Golbez was looking for loose ends and saboteurs.

                _Cecil,_ Kain thought regrettably. _How can I possibly ask for forgiveness now…_   

                When Kain reached the door of the maintenance chamber that surrounded the manifold, he paused, feeling as though he was being watched. He glanced to either side, saw nothing, and opened the door.

                There was a large console that provided readings of the crystals' output. Information flashed across a glass screen, and Kain glanced at it briefly, not understanding a word. Instead, he leaned his spear against it, and scoured the console for the modified controls that Lugae had designed. The Lunarian technology was controlled by crystals and stones, and answered only to Golbez. Lugae had adapted the technology to be used by others, and Kain's fingers skimmed the top of the console as he read words in the common tongue.

                At last, in an octagonal formation were switches that read, "Alignment".

                He moved one of the toggles, noticing new information flash across the glass screen as one of the crystals moved slightly out of formation. The other crystals tried to compensate, and light arced across the space, beginning to flow in a slow, undulating wave.

                Kain glanced at the manifold, wondering how much it would take to move the crystals completely out of sync.

                He moved a different toggle on the opposite side of the first. This crystal also moved, and the transfer of energy between the crystals changed again, adapting to this alteration. The wave of magical energy was both long and short, bouncing between each crystal at different rates.  

                He tested a third and fourth alignment, causing the energy wave to bend and become so tenuous that it nearly lost its integrity.

                "Step away from the console," a woman's voice snapped.

                Kain looked up, but his hands never left the console. The woman with copper hair, bound in a braid between her shoulders, was standing in the doorway with a thin blade drawn.

                "You were speaking to Golbez earlier," he said. "Strange, I don't remember seeing you before."

                "You wouldn't," she said smoothly. "Because I was too busy gaining ground for lord Golbez, while you were wasting his time with your failures."

                "Who are you?" he asked, making a number of assumptions about her already.

                "Griffon," she answered, sneering.

                "Here to protect your master's treasure?" he inquired with a tinge of sarcasm.

                "He who controls the power, controls the world," she answered with a shrug, gliding into the room. "And I will protect the master's interests."

                "I feel badly for your former master," Kain remarked, taking into account her gait, her carriage, and identifying her sword as one typical to the islands of Eblan.

                "Don't," she advised, stepping closer still. "He received his just reward."

                "Step any closer and I'll destroy the manifold," Kain threatened, poising his fingers back over the controls.

                She paused, considering him. "Wasn't that always your intention?"

                "I had intended to survive the process," he replied. "I'm always open to alternatives."

                She pursed her lips and glared as they sized each other up.

                Kain knew that she probably had him on speed, but he was closest to the console. Any move she made he could anticipate. He hoped.

                Her left hand slowly drifted just behind her back, and Kain had traveled enough with Edge to know what she was reaching for.

                There was a moment of silence, a deep breath, and then they both moved. Kain threw each of the toggles into a different orientation and kicked his spear into his left hand. But he hadn't been fast enough to avoid the kunai that the woman, Griffon, had backhandedly thrown. It struck him just between pauldron and breastplate and he cursed as it tore into the soft flesh of his shoulder.

                Griffon had sprinted forward with her sword, all the while, alarms were sounding and lights were flashing in the maintenance chamber. The Crystals were pulsing unnaturally loud, whining at a pitch that was earsplitting, as she spun and drew her katana toward Kain's mid-section with furious speed.

                He staggered as he attempted to push her back with his spear, and she relentlessly beat at his weapon, changing the direction of each attack with quick footwork. Kain had to work hard to keep up with her, striving to ignore the pain in his shoulder.

                She had angled him away from the console, and hastily tried adjusting the toggles to correct the misalignment. Nothing happened, and Kain used her distraction to sweep his spear across both of her shoulders. She deftly bent backwards at the hips to avoid being flattened, and slashed at him angrily once she had righted herself.

                "What have you done!" she seethed, pointing at the manifold that was now glowing so intensely it hurt to look upon.

                Kain grinned menacingly. "Made Golbez' day a little brighter."

                She grinned back, shaking her head. "Bastard," she cursed, lunging forward again with her sword.

                He meant to dodge, but in that moment, the thick glass that surrounded the manifold cracked and shattered, sending shards flying in every direction.

                The both of them were thrown from their feet, sliding across the floor while threads of the Crystals' energy exploded into the room, snarling and popping and raising tiles from the floor. A tendril of magic bounced off of Kain's armor and he screamed with immense pain from the contact. It felt like a current of lightning had jumped into his bones and teeth, making his heart skip several uncomfortable beats.

                The Crystals seethed for a few minutes more and then suddenly dimmed, flickered, and ceased pulsing altogether; the currents no longer flowing from one Crystal to the next. There was nothing but a low, ponderous thrum emitted from the manifold as it powered down.

                Kain coughed, rolling over, and pried the kunai from his shoulder, letting it skitter across what was left of the floor with a dull clatter.

                His vision had gone dark around the edges, and he was having difficulty comprehending up from down.

                Several feet away, Griffon was pushing herself to her feet, brushing glass and tile shards from her clothing. She stared down at him coldly, and in Kain's eyes, there appeared to be two of her.

                "Poison," he slurred, unable to pry himself from the floor. "That's hardly fair."

                "Life isn't fair, precious," she jeered, slamming the hilt of her sword against the back of his head, and blacking out the world.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~

                When Kain's eyes opened next, he found himself in the transporter room, bound, and on the floor.

                Golbez was furiously typing in coordinates on the transporter console, muttering curses.

                Kain fiddled with the ropes binding his wrists, and his armor clunked on the floor beneath him as he struggled to undo them. Golbez turned at the sound.

                His eyes were like flint, glowering from beneath his helmet, and his lips were set into a firm straight line. Kain knew enough from a look like that to fear for his life, but in that moment, he found he no longer particularly cared whether he lived or died.

                "I leave you alone for five minutes," Golbez said severely, completing the coordinates he had already entered. "And in that span you have amazed me with your incompetence."

                Kain grinned, fully knowing how much inconvenience he had just dealt his former master. "It seems I'm not as expendable as you thought," he said boldly.

                "No," Golbez mused, walking toward him and dragging him to the transporter by his arms. "But I should have known better controlling someone with as weak a mind as yourself."

                "You might call it weakness, but I call it strength," Kain replied, wincing when his shoulders slammed sharply into the first step.

                "What strength," Golbez mocked coldly. "You were nothing but a jealous, bitter fool when I found you."

                "Yet even then I had friends," Kain answered. "Despite my flaws."

                Golbez pulled him the remaining distance so that they were both positioned on the transporter platform together. He laughed, and it was a mirthless sound.

                "And now it seems you'll have the opportunity to watch the death of your friends' firsthand after all," Golbez assured him, activating the platform that whisked them both from the tower.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

               

                They walked in silence, efficiently dispatching the few drones that intercepted them. Edge brooded, but Rydia felt her heart race anxiously. Now that she understood Edge's magic, she wanted to discuss it further. There were layers there that she had barely begun to peel back, but it was his adamant concern for her that struck her the most.

                He could control his own magic neatly and quickly. Could he teach her to do the same?

                _You were never meant to wield magic this way._

They were words that pierced, dredging up feelings of anger and inadequacy. Rydia had found a power greater than anything she'd ever wielded before, and now she was supposed to disregard it?

                This was a magic she had learned in her own way, through her own peculiar connection to the crystals. This was _her_ magic and no others'. She chewed on her bottom lip, trying to convince herself that he was wrong.

                _Madness_. Was that what had caused her lapses in memory and in judgment—her magic? 

                She kept her concerns to herself, and walked beside Edge through the circling passage. It took the two of them several turns and ladders to find signs of the others.

                "Finally," Rosa said with relief when Rydia had walked into sight. The white mage's shoulders were slumped, but she looked glad. "What were you thinking, holding your ground?" she asked.

                Rydia glanced guiltily at Edge. "I was startled," she lied.

                "What about the dragon?" Edge asked Cecil.

                "Destroyed," the paladin replied, unbothered, though his armor appeared scorched and his clothing, singed.

                Edge nodded knowingly, and the group was quiet a moment.

                "We've gone off-course," FuSoYa announced, pointing to an access panel. "We need to descend, not walk in circles."

                Cecil helped his uncle pry the heavy door open, and the rest of them stepped closer to peer into the passage.

                "Rydia!" Rosa gasped, causing the summoner to jump while she immediately busied herself with the burns on Rydia's back.

                Rydia cried out in surprise, feeling cool fingers touch her wounded skin. 

                "You've been walking with these wounds this whole time?" Rosa asked, pursing her lips.

                Rydia sighed. "I was doing a good job of ignoring them until now…" she muttered.

                "Heal her quickly, and come along," FuSoYa scolded, climbing into the narrow shaft. It was wide enough for only one person on the ladder at a time, and the Lunarian went first.

                Rosa completed her ministrations, which in Rydia's mind, had taken twice as long as normal, and they followed the Lunarian into the shaft.

                The shaft ended at another chamber within the giant that housed large cylindrical vats on both sides of a walkway. The chamber boomed with the sound of pumps and pistons and liquid rushing through pipes that crossed the room in grids and at angles.

                "Coolant," FuSoYa explained. "The CPU emits an enormous amount of heat. These tanks and pipes provide the necessary relief for the operating unit."

                They followed the grated walkway, having to duck and squeeze through portions as pipes crossed the passage. The sound of coolant hissed through the pipes, moving at high speeds. 

                "Something's strange here," Edge observed, frowning.

                "What is it?" Cecil asked, stopping a moment.

                Edge cast his eyes to either side of the walkway, stiffening. "That hissing sound—it isn't just the pipes. There's something else here."

                Rydia gazed at the pipes and the dark recesses between the vats. There were plenty of places for things to hide, but so far, it had seemed that the entire space was theirs.

                "Listen," Edge ordered, pointing up.

                "It's nothing," FuSoYa dismissed. "It's the sound of the machine, nothing more. Any defensive mechanisms in this room would have the potential to damage the tanks, thereby disabling the giant. There shouldn't be any such drone in here."

                They were quiet for a few more moments, and then Cecil decided to agree with his uncle, cautiously walking onward.

                The farther into the nexus of vats and pipes they traveled, the louder the disorienting noises became.

                The walkway split into a crossway on either side of the main, dividing into several more access paths for maintenance. Rydia glanced down each direction, baffled, but spun back around when she heard Cecil bite off a strangled cry and stumble, hitting his head on a pipe with a loud hollow thud.

                She thought he might have tripped, but her eyes glimpsed a quickly retreating limb, like the thick root of a tree, uncoiling from around Cecil's neck and disappearing into shadow. The paladin crumpled to the floor, holding his temple, while Rosa knelt beside him, frowning as she spoke healing through her words. The white mage was focusing harder than usual, enough for Rydia to hear the uncertainty in her voice, but she was far more alarmed by what it was that had attacked them—it had been unusual and random for anything to strike at them from the shadows.

                "What—" Rydia squawked out, lurching as something cold and clammy wrapped around her ankle and pulled her backwards with such force that she had no time to balance herself.

                She fell hard onto the grated floor, feeling its grooves dig into her skin, and leaving her dazed.

                "At last you've come," a terrifying baritone voice bounced through the metal chamber, as the strange limbs retreated into darkness and left them alone again. Rydia sat up, and the voice's echo tickled her ears, making her look every which way. She recognized it, and it pained her to realize the Archfiend of Fire was not only alive but in the room with them.

                "I've been waiting for this day," a feminine voice sneered. "The giant cannot be stopped."

                "But _you_ can," A deep and rasping voice intoned.

                "Thissss will be your tomb," another voice spoke from some place that was neither near nor far.

                "Where is your master!" Cecil shouted angrily into the vast chamber, standing up. "You're his loyal hounds, so where is he!"

                The hissing voice that sounded reminiscent of dry leaves, laughed. "Our masssster Zemussss…"

                "Gifted us with life," the voice that sounded of the ocean depths gurgled. 

                "So that we might rob you of yours," the woman's voice jeered airily.

                Rydia's eyes teared as swirling winds gusted through the crawl spaces, stirring up an unnatural haze.

                "Archfiends," Edge snarled, drawing both katanas with swift, elegant strokes.

                "Ah, the upstart prince," the sonorous voice of Rubicante heckled. "I hoped we might meet again. When last we met, you taught me a great truth—that many are more powerful than one."

                Rydia flicked her eyes to Edge, seeing his knuckles taut on the hilts of his swords.

                "I will now restore you to full health," Rubicante challenged. "If you wish to see harm to the power source of this Giant, you will have to show us what power you possess!"

                Healing magic descended on the five of them, erasing cuts and abrasions, mending pulled tendons and sore muscles, and filling Rydia's mind with a sense of awareness and calm that had been absent with her heavy use of magic.

                They waited.

                The sound of the machinery hummed and clunked, making it hard to know where their attackers were lurking.

                The unsettling feeling of someone's breath on the back of her neck made Rydia spin, checking over her shoulder. A snake-like hissing, a sandpapering of the air, ricocheted off of the pipes around her and she tried to focus on the source of the sound.

                Rydia's heart beat in her ears as her eyes vigilantly searched for a target.

                "Below!" FuSoYa cried, launching a salvo of words from his mouth. Rydia glimpsed what he had seen, a pair of cataracted eyes staring at her through the grating below her feet.

                She froze with fear, noticing how the face attached to the eyes was sunken and dead, a corpse.

                _Scarmiglione._

                Whip-like limbs, the same she had seen before, coiled around the struts beneath the walk. They wrapped around cables, like terrible living vines, the kind that slunk from a nightmare and reeked of death.

                FuSoYa's spell erupted, a blast of fire hungrily searching for fuel to burn, and the fiend skittered away, using its strange limbs to hook and swing along the pipes. The Firaga spell petered out; the Archfiend, unharmed.

                Cecil drew his sword, the same sword Cid had given him aboard the airship from Kokkol. It was a long blade and broad, with a beautiful guard. Script curved in delicate form down the side of the blade. Rydia was unsure  how she recognized the Lunarian words, but didn't dwell on it, leaving the defense of the others in Cecil's care.

                 Her anxiety made it difficult not to slip into the habit of a trance, especially as she heard the crystals excitedly calling out to her, beseeching freedom. She tried to ignore them, focusing instead on her own steady stream of words. The Lunarian language still felt strange to her ears, clipped and annunciated as it was, but at least it was safe—predictable.

                Spells sought their target. Fire and lightning—but they missed each time. One struck the side of a vat and was reflected several times more across the walkway until it finally fizzled into nothing.

                Rydia shouted angrily and began again, her chants layering with FuSoYa's. Just as the final phrase of her spell was being spoken, one of Scarmiglione's whip-like limbs thrust a sticky wet gob of fetid muck at her face. She ducked too late and it struck her eyes, adhering to skin. She panicked, and threw in a few choice words at the end of her Firaga spell that the crystals interpreted as permission granted. Her spell went wild, with no direction, but she didn't hear the bellow from the Archfiend as she'd hoped.

                Instead, it was Edge who groaned and fell to the floor somewhere beside her. Rydia's heart dropped into her stomach with dread, doubled by her inability to see what had happened. Had she killed him?

                "Keep the fiend away from me!" Rosa cried as she rushed forward to assist.

                "Rydia, keep your  magic in check," she heard from her left. "You're going to get one of us killed!" Cecil barked out.

                "I can't see!" she yelped.

                "Then let me handle this!" Cecil shouted back, grunting as he deflected something heavy with his sword.

                Rydia reluctantly entered the reserve, listening to the battle around her until her vision could be restored.

                Edge had returned to his feet, and as soon as he had, it was FuSoYa who grunted and gagged, attacked by the same muck from the Fiend.

                "He's targeting the mages!" Edge snarled.

                Rosa was chanting, just as she always did during battle. In fact, she never stopped, but her words sounded unsure, unsteady, and Rydia worried something might actually be wrong.

                Rydia continued to wait anxiously, and was yanked to the floor again by Scarmiglione, gasping when she hit her head.

                "Someone un-blind me so I can fight!" she screamed.

                "Mages," she heard Edge mutter from her right.

                She tried to sit up again, but a pair of hands held her back down. She snarled and kicked until Edge grumbled. "You asked for assistance?"

                "What—" she muttered furiously.

                A cool liquid pattered on her face, and then a hand began to scoop the muck from her face. The disgusting goo steamed and hissed at the liquid until the last of the sticky substance had been removed from her face and dripped from her eye lashes.

                Rydia's eyes fluttered open to see Edge still poised with a small phial, staring at her exasperatedly.

                "Thanks," she said.

                "Next time don't burn me to a crisp," he huffed with a peculiar smirk, dragging her to her feet and leaving her to slice at another of Scarmiglione's tentacle-like appendages. One fell cleanly to the floor, wriggling by itself for a few seconds before it lay still and hardened to resemble a tusk. The Archfiend howled and hissed and scrambled up the side of a vat, leering down at them with his white, empty eyes.

                FuSoYa chanted the words of another spell, one that Rydia didn't recognize in its Lunar incarnation, and a magic circle surrounded the Fiend. The indistinct shape of clocks, their hands turning backwards, spiraled around Scarmiglione and then burst into wisps of nothing.

                Scarmiglione hissed, but it sounded delayed, drawn out as he skittered more slowly along the pipes.

                "Strike him now!" FuSoYa commanded.

                Rydia cast Firaga, hitting the Archfiend squarely in the chest. He writhed in pain, his strange appendages beating the air, while his corpse-like hands hid his face where skin was falling in strips to the floor.

                Cecil ran forward while the Fiend was down, thrusting his sword through the Fiend's defenses and striking the exposed ribs beneath Scarmiglione's arm.

                The Fiend lashed out with its limbs, trying to snare Cecil in a choke hold, but Cecil wove and ducked, hacking at the appendages with his sword. Wherever the sword struck, the Fiend developed weeping wounds that steamed and blistered. 

                The paladin parried and retreated, giving Edge an opening to cast his own magic; Flame snarling around the Fiend's body like a serpent.

                FuSoYa and Rydia, too, doubled their efforts, casting in unison. Scarmiglione leaped and dodged as best he could, but the Slow spell that held him prisoner kept his movements to a crawl. Fire burned his legs and arms and blistered them black. He retaliated with his remaining limbs, hurling more foul muck that he plucked from his gullet at them. One gob struck Rosa's eyes, and she bent over, retching, as she tried ineffectively to pry it off of her face.

                Cecil lunged forward again, positioning himself in the path of the Fiend and Rosa, and cleaving another of his appendages off in the process. It too, wriggled under its own power before hardening to petrified bone and laying still.

                FuSoYa cast one final Firaga, torching the zombie king into a blackened husk that crackled to stillness with bony fingers outstretched.

                "They're preventing us from reaching the core of the Giant," FuSoYa complained, running past Scarmiglione.

                They followed him, choosing a route that seemed the most central to the CPU.

                "All four of them are here," Cecil said as he ran. "We have to assume that they—"

                His words were lost when, at an opening between the vats where the walkway was exposed to the side, a torrent of water barreled across it. FuSoYa was swept aside like a leaf, flattened into the cable railings with force. The deluge lurched the entire walkway sideways, sending it swinging as the cables that suspended it twanged uncertainly.

                The other four slid to a stop, and saw a giant shape like a tortoise poised on the railings of the walkway parallel to their own.

                "You may have passed the weakest of we four, but you will drown in your own blood when I'm through with you," the voice of Cagnazzo boomed at them with a menacing chuckle.

                The giant of a tortoise then leaped, landing on the swinging walkway and upsetting its balance even more. FuSoYa's unconscious body rolled with the movement, but they were unable to reach him and, at least for the moment, he was beyond Cagnazzo's notice. Instead, the Fiend swept up a torrent of water and hurled it in their direction. It sped toward them like a cannon and they scattered to the side. Rydia felt her clothing being whipped across her body from the speed of it, and stared in disbelief at the Fiend. She had never faced the Archfiend of Water before, but she imagined the pain of enduring one of his attacks directly.

                Cecil held up his shield, attempting to advance, but Cagnazzo hurled great spiraling rivers of water at them, throwing them off balance and pinning them down as he laughed.

                Cagnazzo was unrelenting, but Cecil's shield held, dividing the water like a boulder against the tide.

                "We need to get past him!" Cecil shouted, strained.

                Edge made a disparaging sound as he dodged another ribbon of water. "Obviously! But how do you propose we do that. We can't even advance two feet!"

                Rydia found a solution for him, freezing another jet of water with a well-timed Blizzaga, and crackling the entire length of the attack back to its source. Cagnazzo's personal cyclone held him prisoner and froze him to the walkway while he roared angrily. Rydia launched into the incantation for Thundaga with barely a thought in between, allowing the Fiend no time to react.

                The spell sparked and chirped as it struck, and Cagnazzo bellowed in pain. The distraction caused the cyclone to fail, and Cecil sprinted forward just as the Fiend was returning to his senses.

                Rosa cast Protect in that moment, and the convex shield of blue appeared before the paladin; solidifying, flickering, and then vanishing.

                Rydia stared at the space where the spell had been in disbelief, and then glanced at Rosa. The two caught each others' eye and Rydia saw the stricken expression on her face.

                "My spells--" Rosa gasped.

                Rydia clenched her jaw. She knew well the feeling of powerlessness. But why now? Why had it taken up until now for the white mage to lose her magic?

                "They—I can coax some life into them, but they're weak," Rosa explained worriedly.

                _Huh,_ Rydia thought, waiting for Cecil to get out of the way of Cagnazzo's feet so she could cast again.

                "The Crystals have gone remarkably quiet," Edge observed, weighing in on the conversation.

                Rydia conjured another bolt of lightning out of the air, stunning the Archfiend and providing another opening for Cecil.

                "What do you mean 'quiet'?" she asked Edge briskly. 

                "The magic they were emitting up until now," he said, annoyed, throwing a kunai at the Fiend's exposed face to distract him. "It's nowhere near as powerful as it was. Almost as if they're sleeping."

                "Sleeping," Rydia repeated, watching Cecil deflect blow after blow with this shield. "But not dead?"

                Edge made a face. "Definitely not dead, but something must have happened in the Tower. Whatever spell was shielding it must have shut down because I can't sense it anymore."

                Rydia flinched, thinking back to her conversation with FuSoYa. He had said that not all power was lost, but what if all the Crystals had been exhausted at once? Was it possible to weaken them to the point of uselessness? Was it possible to break the Crystals?

                She studied the Archfiend and frowned. If the Fiends were still alive, the Crystals had to be. But if the Fiends had been summoned….

                "Golbez must be here," she realized.

                "My thoughts exactly," Edge seconded.

                The both of them noticed they had been slacking in their efforts when Cecil was thrown back by Cagnazzo who had suddenly charged forward and re-woven his cyclone of water to hurl against them.        

                Rydia chanted Thundaga for a third time, and Edge gathered his own magic to himself. The two of them set off a light show second to none, sending bolts arcing and bouncing around the portion of the walkway occupied by the Archfiend, and blasting his cyclone to vapor.

                The Fiend snarled and jumped, bowing the walkway when he landed and snapping and twanging the cables that secured it. The four of them hastily stumbled to recover their footing, and Cecil made sure to wedge himself between the menacing tortoise and the others.

                "Why aren't you up there with him?" Rydia asked Edge accusingly.

                "Do you see a shield in my possession?" he asked sharply.

                She rolled her eyes, and then gasped when Cagnazzo built up momentum and barreled toward them again, leaving them with no choice but to run.

                They sprinted down the length of the walkway, glancing over their shoulders with trepidation.

                They had run far enough back that they had reached the crossway, when a bright flash of light accompanied by a great clap of thunder shook the space behind them and reverberated against every surface around them. The Archfiend groaned and stumbled, and the four of them slowed to a stop, turning to see what had happened.

                Cagnazzo had collapsed, head over heels, and his form was dissolving into clear water, losing distinction, and leaking through the grated floor. Behind him, FuSoYa was laying on the walkway with his hand outstretched, his eyes alight.

                They hurried back to the Lunarian, stepping carefully over the slippery metal walkway to join him.

                "FuSoYa!" Rosa said in surprise, amazed that the older man had regained consciousness with time enough to spare them.

                "I should have taught you our incantations like I taught the Summoner," he complained weakly, still a bit dazed from Cagnazzo's attack.

                Cecil helped his uncle to stand on the twisted and bent walkway, and looked at Rosa.

                "What do you mean 'should have taught me your incantations'?" Rosa asked quietly.

                FuSoYa looked at her brazenly. "In the event that your Crystals failed you, which they have."

                "But they're not destroyed!" Rydia protested.

                FuSoYa shook his head, glancing at the summoner. "No, not destroyed. But they have just had a significant amount of energy siphoned from them. To expect them to function at full capacity is foolish, just as the Archfiends seem not to be at their proper strength. The magic of this planet has dimmed."

                "What am I supposed to do?" Rosa asked.          

                FuSoYa pursed his lips. "White magic has always been, of the disciplines, the more stable form of magic. It would have to be, since it requires precision and knowledge to the depth that black magic does not. You may only need to learn how to draw from a new source, but whether I can teach you that in the next few minutes, is something I do not know."

                "Re-teach me?" Rosa asked, appalled.

                "Yes," FuSoYa replied, leading them onward again. "How quick of a study are you?"

                Rosa was staring at him, wide-eyed. "Quick enough," she answered.

                "Good. Because otherwise my only advice for you is to stay as far back as possible so you won't become a nuisance," he said curtly, descending a staircase toward the core.

 

0-0-0-0

 

 

                    The wrath of Golbez was not to be underestimated, and Kain had been punished severely for his brief stint of consciousness.

 

                    He stood limply at Golbez's side, watching events unfold, but being unable to respond to them. His mind had been broken, and this time, he was unsure if he'd ever be mended again. He had seen inside Golbez' mind. He had seen families being murdered—kingdoms burned to the ground—and himself being responsible for these deaths.

 

                    Kain felt ill, but he was trapped inside his own body. There was no need for him to be bound, as his own guilt shackled him, and Golbez let him stand by as he surveyed the Giant's systems from its control room.

 

                    The world had run out of time.

 

                    But just then, warnings began to sound. There were anomalies inside the giant's systems. Spikes of energy, and damaged circuits; and Golbez cursed loudly.

 

                    "Go!" he screamed at Kain, shaking the dragoon vigorously by the collar.

 

                    But Kain simply wavered in place, unable to obey or disobey.

 

                    Golbez struck him hard across the jaw, and Kain stumbled, recovering his balance like a numb puppet.

 

                    "I take away your will and you become even more useless than before!" Golbez shouted, and then stared again at the information streaming across the consoles from the CPU.

 

                    "They're like ants," Golbez seethed, sliding crystalline stones across a control board as he sought out more details. "An infestation I can't ignore."

 

                    An image flashed through Kain's mind, an image that came from Golbez.

 

                    _The Archfiends._

"Of course," Golbez mused, staring coldly at the dragoon. "The ones who will not fail me."

 

                    Golbez began a summoning in the control room. This was a strange summoning, and one that drew up a circle of magic that encompassed the entire room. Golbez spoke words that were unlike any Kain had heard before, and four shimmering figures appeared within the circle. They coalesced until they had solid form, and Golbez frowned, straining hard to anchor them to reality until each of the four took their first breath.

 

                    The summoning circle faded and Golbez slumped, looking more drained by the rite than he ever had in the past.

 

                    "My lord," Rubicante said with a bow. "How may we serve you again?"

                   

                    "This giant has a pest problem," Golbez informed his servants, pointing toward the door. "Destroy them."

 

                    Kain watched the four Archfiends bow curtly and leave, and didn't even flinch as Barbariccia reached out and cupped his chin affectionately with thumb and forefinger as she walked past, purring, "Hello again, love."

                   

 

0-0-0-0-0

 

                The Archfiend of Wind was waiting on a platform for the party of five to come to her. Barbariccia was as beautiful as she was fearsome, and sat on a railing with one leg crossed over the other as she watched them climb the stairs to her perch.

                Rydia saw what she was guarding—the panel that controlled the platform—and stared warily at the fiend.

                Barbariccia seemed to know exactly what Rydia had been thinking. "You will not descend to the core," the fiend sneered, hopping up as light as a feather.

                Her golden hair curled and twisted around her like a living thing, touching the floor, but not dragging. She had all the majesty of an Eidolon, but she had fallen, somehow. She had become a slave to an evil master and it radiated from her demeanor like an odorous perfume.  

                "Your journey ends here," the fiend said soundly, spreading out her arms and unfurling her hair as she summoned wind from every corner of the room. Rydia was drawn forward to her toes as a brisk draft hit her back, and everyone else squinted as the winds swirled more fiercely around them, tearing at their clothes and hair.

                "She's forming a cyclone!" Cecil pointed out, shouting over the sound of the wind.

                Rosa ducked behind the paladin and Rydia reached out for the closest railing to keep from being swept from her feet.

                In the absence of her own magic, Rosa nocked an arrow to her bowstring and took aim. The cyclone played games with the fletching and sent the arrow wild, sending it flying back the opposite direction where it skimmed over Edge's shoulder.

                "Projectiles won't work against her!" Edge said angrily, drawing only one of his katanas and holding his ground.

                "You're best to stay in the reserve," FuSoYa told Rosa, and then nodded to Rydia. "Let the Summoner keep this wind spirit on her toes."

                Rydia gave the Lunarian a plaintive look and frowned at the Archfiend whose tangled hair was flowing around her like a terrible tornado.

                "How did you defeat her last time?" Edge asked.

                "Last time we had Kain," Cecil replied.

                There was a pause as Edge turned to stare at the paladin in disbelief. "Kain was useful?" Edge quipped.

                "The dragoon can't help you now!" Barbariccia taunted, and cast a spell that took their feet out from under them and pinned them to the floor, sapping them of strength.

                "Maelstrom," FuSoYa complained, prying himself up enough to speak the words of Curaja on the five of them.

                Rydia listened to him chant the incantation, noticing the subtleties between his and Rosa's magic. Despite having known some of its spells as a child, white magic baffled her, and FuSoYa's incantation held a certain exactness that even Rosa's did not have; like a skilled mender asking sharply for tools precisely when he needed them.

                Rydia stood up, but found herself the target of Barbariccia’s fist that had emerged out of the cyclone and struck her hard across the jaw. She stumbled to the side, and her cheek burned from the force of it as she tasted blood in her mouth. It alarmed her more that her feet had become suddenly leaden. Had Barbariccia cast a spell she hadn't heard? Rydia glanced down and saw a pair of stone boots that resembled her own, and yelped as she had to duck at the waist to dodge another attack because she was rooted to the floor.

                The others moved around her, doing their best to avoid Barbariccia’s wrath, and FuSoYa chanted the spell that undid her petrification, allowing her to move again. It was Edge who first went on the offensive while the others hung back, flickering in a haze of light, and reappearing again at the Fiend’s back. If Rydia had blinked she would have missed it, but she hadn’t, and neither had Barbariccia. The Fiend took delight in chasing after the ninja as he ran and leapt along the platform and the scaffolding around it. She lashed out at him with tendrils of her hair, like golden whips, but he hopped away each time, barely ahead of her. Edge’s luck was not to last long. Barbariccia was a fiend of the air, and the winds did her bidding, not his. She snared him as he landed, catching him by the foot with a tendril of her hair and hauling him from his feet with a triumphant snarl.

                Edge curled into himself, and rolled when he hit the floor, coming to a stop at a metal post with a loud grunt.

                "Your attacks are useless!" she laughed. "Not even the swiftest among you can get past my cyclone!"

                Rydia glanced in Edge’s direction, and saw him rise, though blood was pattering to the grated floor from a gash on his forehead. Despite it, his eyes were fiercely aimed in the Archfiend’s direction.

If Edge couldn’t find an opening, how were the rest of them supposed to?

Rydia chanted regardless, staring intently at the cyclone as it churned an erratic path along the platform. Rydia had to run as she chanted, avoiding Barbariccia’s gusts of wind until she had spoken her spell to completion. Thundaga blazed out of the air, flashing into the Fiend’s tornado, but it didn’t hit her directly. Instead it was swept up into the cyclone, sizzling on the wind and lashing out again with tendrils of sparks. Rydia had to dodge her own spell as it rebounded.

                “You must strike the eye of her storm!” FuSoYa advised, and cast thundaga directly at the fiend, pouring the spell straight down the center of the funnel. Rydia watched in amazement as Barbariccia’s figure was illuminated in silhouette against her own wind as she screamed in outrage.

Barbariccia spun again, uncoiling her funnel at them with the force of a gale. It struck them all down, pinning them against the platform railings.

                FuSoYa continuously chanted, healing their wounds, but finally pulled a hapless Rosa aside. “This phrase,” he said, and spoke a brief series of words to her in Lunarian. “Every time you begin your spells, replace the first phrase with the one I’ve just taught you,” he advised.

                Rosa repeated the phrase uncertainly, testing it out.

                “Remember,” he said. “At the beginning of each incantation.”

                The white mage nodded numbly.

"And place emphasis on every second syllable, not third,” he said, keeping his eye on Barbariccia. “Keep your voice even, don't embellish," the Lunarian went on.

                Rydia began an incantation of her own, trying to focus on the fiend within the cyclone, but Barbariccia preempted her, launching out of a spin with a kick that struck hard. Rydia crouched in pain, nursing her arm, and heard Rosa chant to heal her. FuSoYa coached the white mage through the spell, but when it was completed, Rydia didn’t feel healing—instead she felt one of her bones break at the point of impact. She screamed in pain with tears flowing from her eyes, and it was FuSoYa who had to heal her instead.

                “I said _second,_ not third!” the Lunarian scolded. Rosa was mortified, and Rydia couldn’t help but forgive her—she knew firsthand the difficulty of learning the Lunarian words.

                Rosa tried again with a simpler spell, attempting to heal Edge’s injuries as Barb took great pleasure in fighting hand to hand with the ninja. The spells were little more than palliative, and Edge glanced at her, unimpressed.

                "You mustn't just say the words!” FuSoYa shouted out to her. “You must say them with conviction!" he said as he conjured another Thundaga spell into existence onto the Fiend.

                Rydia dodged another counterattack from Barbariccia, and thought up a different strategy. If Cecil and Edge couldn’t strike her, and if hitting her with magic was difficult at best; the only choice left was to destroy her cyclone altogether. A name rose to her lips, and she began a very familiar summoning, a song she had known since childhood—Mist’s.

                The summoning circle surrounded her, and Mist’s long, sinuous body flew into the room with her wings unfurled. She alighted on the platform and stretched her neck to gaze down upon the Archfiend.

                Barbariccia hurled scythe-like winds at the Eidolon, but Mist merely beat her wings and shredded the gusts to gentle drafts, regarding the other with cold gray eyes.

                "Fiend of the Air, my Mist will reduce your howling winds to mere gasps," Mist decreed.

                "I don't believe we've met, Guardian of the Veil," Barbariccia said boldly from within her sanctuary of wind. "A shame that we find ourselves in opposition, but such is our station in life—to answer to the whims of another.”

                Barbariccia caused her twister to swirl toward the dragon, but Mist rose into the air above it and flicked her tail, sending an eddy of air swirling in the opposite direction, neutralizing it. The dragon rose higher, raising her head to take in a deep breath just before she unleashed a stream of mist that, when it encountered Barbariccia's cyclone, spiraled into it, and wreaked havoc on the gusts until they were too heavy for the Archfiend to churn and manipulate. The tornado fell apart, stray gusts being torn to shreds by the dragon’s mist. Barbariccia was revealed at last, glaring at the Eidolon with a look of death.

                "Traitor," Barbariccia accused haughtily.

                "Foundling," Mist returned calmly.

                 Barbariccia meant to collect the winds to herself again, but Rydia noticed a quick movement from the corner of her eye.

                Cecil had thrown something to Edge, and in the span of a breath, the beautiful sword that Cecil had been given was soaring through the air, and struck the distracted fiend in the stomach.

Barbariccia clutched the weapon in disbelief, staring at the humans with menace. Ichor bled from her wound, and the Fiend stumbled, staring from the humans to the blade in shock. The magic that bound her into existence began to uncoil, unraveling her form like sand being blown by the wind. "Not again!" she wailed, just before even her golden hair was nothing more than scattered golden dust.

                    "Rydia, there is one other," Mist warned, setting down on the platform once more and fixing her summoner with a look. "There is someone you might call to your aid to stamp out the archfiend's flames. Please remember him," she advised, before Rydia released her to the Feymarch.

 

                    Cecil walked forward to retrieve his blade, now lying on the platform floor, and sheathed it.

 

                    "Is everyone alright?" he asked, looking them over.

 

                    FuSoYa glared at Rosa. "No thanks to your white mage," he said. "Keep your phrasing in mind,” he repeated. “Think through what you're going to do before you begin, and remember that you are replacing, not adding. Stop leaning upon your old incantations—they are unreliable and redundant."

 

                    "Your words are strange," Rosa said angrily.

 

                    "My language is the language of the Crystals,” he objected. “Yours is the language that is strange. I cannot believe my brother bothered to teach you humans our ways, seeing what you've done with our knowledge."

 

                    "You will not insult the members of this party," Cecil said with annoyance, stepping into the conversation. "We are doing the best that we can."

 

                    "Your best may not be good enough," FuSoYa said, as he activated the platform and they descended into the intricate core that controlled the giant.

 

0-0-0-0-0

 

                    When the platform stopped, they stepped off of it into a broad antechamber. Behind it, a large dome had been built, lined with pipes and wires and tubes that all connected somehow to an enormous orb in its center. Everything had the look of polished obsidian, and the five of them stared at it, amazed. Or at least four of them did.

 

                    “That’s what we’ve come for,” FuSoYa said gravely. “But first, we must get to it, and I presume it will not be simply done.”

 

                    “Rubicante,” Edge snarled, preparing his swords.

                   

                    "That was disappointingly quick," the Archfiend replied sourly, materializing out of a haze of heat before them.

 

                    It was so entirely unexpected, that they jumped back from his presence.

 

                    "Impressive,” The Fiend of fire said calmly, sparking a trench of flames from his finger tips that spread the full length of the antechamber. “You’ve come this far, but this is where your journey ends," he told them with a sneer. "Master Zemus will reduce this planet to bedrock, to a blank slate, so that a new civilization can begin.”

 

                    "Your master can burn in Hell," Edge snapped.

 

                    Rubicante laughed, drawing his cloak tightly around himself. "You will not disrupt this machine so long as I stand guard."

 

                    “Then you will be destroyed with your master, Archfiend,” Cecil threatened, drawing his sword and lifting his shield.

 

                    "You're welcome to try. Please," Rubicante beckoned, holding out one hand while his flames heated the chamber to an inferno. "Make this battle worth my talents."

                     

 

 

 

 

0-0-0-0

                Golbez had been absent for hours, integrated into the Giant’s systems by a network of wires in a small chamber. Kain felt the giant’s movements as Golbez directed them; saw what the giant saw through Golbez’ eyes.

                And then came a moment when alarms clanged in Kain’s head like a percussive symphony, as if there was a warning system installed inside his skull that reverberated against every thought and impulse and overwhelmed him with information. It had been bad enough when Kain had sensed the fall of the Archfiends through Golbez' mind, but this was far worse. The chamber that had granted Golbez exclusive access to the Giant's systems suddenly evicted him, disconnecting him from the machine's "brain" as every system of the giant shut down through a series of failures.

                "No— _No!"_ Golbez shouted, as he stumbled to the control panel that was blinking and flickering as its power source began to fail. The giant began to lurch, and then went still.

                _Rage!_   

The emotion burned through Kain like a fever, though it was not his own.

Kain stood silently as Golbez stalked past him and out of the control room that was flashing with warnings, just before all of the consoles went blank and lifeless. The Central Processing Unit had been destroyed, and in some flicker of the chaos that was Golbez’ thoughts, Kain understood that it had been Cecil who had orchestrated it.

                Kain waited for his master’s commands, but he was not summoned. He was expendable, after all. Golbez had other things on his mind, and Kain's death in a self-destructing juggernaut was the least of his concerns.

                Minutes drew out and the giant began to groan. And in the midst of this, a woman's monotone voice began to sound out through its interior with notices at regular intervals. The natural response would be to flee—to escape—but Golbez had elected revenge over self-preservation, and he had sought out the saboteurs of his plans in order to destroy them utterly.

                Flashes of information splayed across Kain's mind.

                Cecil. Rosa. They were alive, and not only were they alive, but the others were with them as well. And a man.

                Kain sensed a searing hatred for this man through his link to Golbez. This man was a _Lunarian._ A meddling fool whose scope of grandeur was so limited, he would rather hide in a rabbit hole than shape the destiny of lesser beings.

There was a moment of intense emotion and struggle, and suddenly Kain felt disconnected from the entire experience. He felt sane. He blinked and looked around the control room with his own eyes.

                His link to Golbez had been…severed?   

                He wavered under his own power and stumbled across the room. He was no longer bound by Golbez' control, but they were still connected, he discovered, as concerns flitted through the other man's mind.

                _Self-destruct. Escape hatch. Retreat._ Kain saw its location, almost as if he had been given a map. The transporter that had brought the two of them here was connected to the control room by a simple lift.

                But to escape on his own meant abandoning the others. Kain knew that a world in which he had survived and Cecil had not, was one he could never show his face. He had to warn them—if Golbez hadn't already killed them.

                Kain stumbled onto the lift, and was amazed that it operated for him. Was it Golbez' presence in his mind that had allowed it? These systems were strange.

                The lift went upwards, past the transporter, past the secondary cooling units, and finally to the housing chamber for the CPU itself. The lift had barely stopped moving, when a calamity of thoughts seared through Golbez, and thus, through Kain as well.

                A great darkness was lifted, and in its place, memories came rushing back like an ocean that had been returned to its bed.

                Kain collapsed, his mind overwhelmed, as images of another life superseded his own memories.

                  _KluYa…Cecilia…_

Names from years past—parents perhaps.

                _A village._

Kain sensed that Golbez knew this place. This had been a home to him once.

                _Theodor._

                A name that had once been held with esteem. A name that had once belonged to an innocent young boy.

                _Betrayal._

                People had abused the teachings of magic. They had murdered his father.

                _Abandoned._

                His mother had died on the birthing bed, leaving him alone with a brother.

                _Claimed._             

                By a voice who seemed to know him, who felt his anger, who _encouraged_ his rage.

                And with a name that seemed to call out through time— _Golbez_ —Kain snapped to his senses again, retching on the cold floor on his hands and knees.

                He didn't understand what it meant. He didn't know why he had been shown these images, but he felt as lost, as hopeless, and as angry as the little boy Theodor. Had that been Golbez once before he had been turned?

                Had the two of them really been so lost, that they had been lured by the first voice that had promised them a place to belong?

                Kain mastered his stomach, and controlled his breathing. Who was it that had engineered their hatred to bring the both of them here? Who was responsible for the slaughter of so many innocents?

                Kain crawled out of the lift and stumbled behind the panel that operated it. He had to pause—he was too dizzy to continue—and heard two sets of feet hurry past him and into the lift he had just vacated.

                Another minute went by. More warnings chimed from the monotone woman's voice and the Giant groaned as its joints and pistons settled.

                Kain shoved himself back to his feet, clarity helping to propel his footsteps. Golbez' thoughts had fled his mind. The doubts and fear and hatred had all receded. It was like poison had been drawn out of him. For the first time in months—years—Kain finally felt free.

                He ran across the walkway and through the open doorway into the CPU's chamber. It was a mess. Wires and pipes dangled and sparked; a noxious gas had begun to fill the space, and the entire dome wreaked of fried circuits.

                "We need to get out of here!" Edge's voice cut through the madness of the smoke and noise.

                Kain followed the sound, hopping over large portions of damaged machinery.

                "How?" Rydia demanded shrilly, sounding hoarse and panicked.

                "This way!" Kain called out to them, finally coming close enough to see all of them in the room that was filling with spilled coolant.

                "Kain!" Rosa cried out, clutching onto Cecil with bloodied knuckles. He couldn't tell if she was glad or bereaved to see him.

                "We've fallen for enough of your tricks," Edge snarled, holding onto both swords like they were his only link to reality.

                Kain looked over them briefly, noticing how ragged and defeated they looked. Truth be told, he probably didn't look much better.

                "We can talk later!" he said briskly. "But if you want to live, you'd best follow me _now!"_

                They stared at him dumbly for a minute, until another tremor shook the Giant as if to emphasize his words.

                He gestured at them to follow him, and turned to leave. They could forgive him or put him out of his misery. He really didn't care.

                So long as they all lived long enough for him to find out…


	30. Accusations

 

                Rydia bit off a curse as she tripped over a fallen cable in pursuit of the others. She had found herself at the end of the line as the five of them sprinted over what remained of the CPU. The fumes from leaking coolant made it hard to focus or breathe, and she tried furiously to keep up lest she be left behind in the confusion. A narrow catwalk linked the CPU's central chamber to maintenance tubes and scaffolding, and they ran across it into a small cage with a transporter device set into its floor. Kain waited until they were all together, keeping a noticeable distance, before pointing down to the device.

                "Where will this take us?" Cecil demanded, holding Rosa protectively behind him and staring at Kain with a look of such menace that Rydia wasn't sure if she still needed her weapon.

                "No time," Kain replied, pointing again at the device. "Unless you want to stay here and be crushed by the Giant as it collapses."

                "I've had enough of lies," Cecil said angrily.

                "Truth takes time," Kain answered more quietly, holding his ground.

                The Giant shook violently and another line in the main chamber exploded, hissing with contents under pressure.

                "We can sort this out later," Rosa said, stepping out from behind Cecil. "There's a lot to tell on both sides, I'm sure. But not right now."

                "Somebody _go_!" Edge snapped impatiently.

                Kain looked at Cecil, who looked back evenly.

                With a sharp sigh, Cecil finally stepped toward the device. Rydia watched him go, all the while keeping the dragoon fixed in the corner of her eye. If he betrayed them now, she was more than prepared to unleash the fury of another Eidolon against him. She had certainly summoned enough of them today, but as hesitant as she was to set an Eidolon against another human; with Kain, she might make an exception.

                Cecil was whisked away in a beam of light that faded into a silvery glow of sparkling motes.

                "Rosa, go," Edge said, not bothering to look at her as he spoke. He was too preoccupied with glaring at Kain.

                "It's safe," Kain assured her, flicking his gaze in Rosa's direction before returning Edge's glare.

                Rosa took a step forward, but paused, looking at the two men. "I expect to see the both of you," she warned. "There's no reason for bloodshed. Not now."

                "Go," Edge and Kain both told her in unison.

                "And take Rydia with you," Edge added.

                Rosa gripped Rydia's hand and tugged her forward, bringing them both to stand on the transporter.

                Rydia stared back at Edge worriedly, catching his eye before the transporter sent her out of the Giant, away from the alarms and the toxic fumes.

                She and Rosa were deposited into a different chamber altogether—one that looked eerily familiar.

                They hastily stepped off of the device, finding Cecil only a few steps away. His arms were folded and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

                "We're in the Tower of Babil," he told them angrily, staring at the teleporter with impatience. "Where are the other two?"

                "They were just behind us," Rosa said, resting her hand on his arm. "Cecil don't act out of vengeance. Think this through."

                Cecil's gaze had turned frigid, and Rosa removed her hand as if burned. "Haven't I been betrayed enough already?" he asked. "First by Kain, then by my own brother."

                "He wasn't under his own control," Rosa said anxiously, trying to diffuse Cecil's anger. "There were other factors involved, other manipulations."

                "How many times do I allow such wretched behavior to be excused by 'mind control'?" Cecil seethed. "My own brother abandoned me and left me to die!"

                "He was a boy!" Rosa cried. "A boy who had lost his parents to the cruelty and greed of men. He was taken advantage of by a mind that even the Lunarians couldn't quiet."

                Their conversation was cut short by the device activating again, depositing Edge and Kain on the platform behind them.

                Rydia tensed, seeing Kain; and then felt a thrill of surprise as Edge delivered a decisive jab to the dragoon's throat. Kain choked out a frantic gasp for air and crumpled to his knees.

                Rydia stood where she was, torn between offering assistance or cheering, but it was Rosa who intervened instead.

                "Stop!" the white mage shouted, bolting between the two men with her arms outstretched.

                Kain wheezed, gripping his adam's apple; unable to do anything but stare up at Rosa and glance at Edge in shock. By contrast, the prince looked satisfied.

                "We're not out of danger yet," she argued with them, directing her comment at the prince. "We're still in the tower—in the enemy's territory. Until we are back among our allies, this fight can wait."

                "We should kill him and be done with this," Edge seethed, searing Kain with a dark look.

                "Why now, Kain?" Cecil asked, coming closer. "Why now?"

                "No longer…" Kain whispered, still gasping. "Under…his…"

                "Control?" Edge snapped. "Bullshit. You lied to us before. You cost us the final crystal and a great deal of time."

                "If you…wanted…me dead…why not just do it?" Kain asked in gasps, gazing up at Edge.

                "You should suffer first," Edge retorted, hands on his hips. "Suffer for all the lives you helped destroy. My kingdom is all but dust and ash because of what you've done."

                Kain blanched, but said nothing.

                "How do we get out of here?" Rosa said instead, interrupting their conversation.

                "Your ship…" Kain whispered. "Does it have a teleporter?"

                Rydia glanced at Cecil, who in turn glanced at Kain. The idea hadn't occurred to any of them that their Lunarian vessel might very well have such a device on board.

                "No," Cecil answered hesitantly. "It does not."

                Kain made a face, stymied. "There is another," he said, looking at Edge.

                Edge frowned, not liking the implication in Kain's expression. "Where?" the ninja asked hotly.

                "The same one Rubicante used when he invaded your kingdom," he said, waiting a full minute for the gravity of his statement to sink in.

                Edge released a heavy breath, staring at Kain with narrowed eyes before forcing himself to walk away, clenching and unclenching his fists as he did.

                "So that's--" Edge trailed off, emotion choking his words to silence.

                Rydia watched him; afraid to get too close.

                Finally Edge turned back around, schooling his expression. "This device will take us to the castle," he stated, looking at Kain directly.

                The dragoon nodded.

                "So do it," Edge commanded.

                "Where else might it take us?" Cecil said suspiciously, glancing at the console that controlled the device. "You could be lying and leading us into another trap."

                "Where has Golbez gone?" Kain asked instead. "Is he here fighting you? He isn't. What possible purpose would I have in keeping you here?"

                "Your own personal gain," Cecil snapped.

                "I have nothing more to gain from your misery," Kain said heavily. "All I have to gain is redemption, but I can't explain that properly until we're out of this place."

                "They've gone to the moon," Rosa explained. "Golbez and FuSoYa."

                "The moon?" Kain asked, perplexed.

                Edge scoffed, more furious than amused. "Don't pretend to know nothing about it," he said.

                Kain frowned. "I admit, I do not."

                Rydia sighed, loudly enough to be noticed by the others. "How much longer are we going to argue about what to do next?" she asked. "Are we going to follow Golbez or not?"

                The others stared at her in surprise, until Rosa pried her gaze away to look at Cecil. The paladin remained indecisive on the matter.

                "We're going to follow them," Rosa decided on Cecil's behalf. "We can't leave the fate of our world in the hands of another."

                "This is his fight," Cecil retorted angrily.

                "This is _our_ fight," Rosa corrected him, not letting him break free of her gaze. "You won't learn anything if he dies."

                "His death might make right the deaths of everyone else he's murdered," Cecil answered sharply.

                Rosa narrowed her eyes. "Will it?" she asked. "Will it put your doubts and anger to rest?"

                Cecil opened his mouth and then closed it again, unable to answer.

                "We're going to follow them," Rosa said again, and then looked at Kain. "Can you program the device?" she asked.

                Kain stood hesitantly, and walked over to the console.

                "I thought the devices didn't respond to humans," Cecil noted curtly.

                Kain absently shook his head. "Lugae made modifications," he said, altering coordinates on the screen and rubbing his injured throat with his free hand. "There," he said gruffly.

                "This will take us to Eblan?" Cecil asked.

                "It will," Kain answered.

                They all stared at each other for a long moment, and then it was Edge who impatiently strode forward. "We don't have time for this," he complained, walking onto the device. It activated at his presence and enveloped him in light as he was whisked away.

                "Kain," Cecil challenged, nodding toward the device. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you behind."

                The dragoon nodded mutely and stepped obediently onto the device.

                "Rydia," Cecil prodded next.

                At the last moment, she glanced back at the two of them. "He _is_ your brother, Cecil," she reminded him. "The least you could do is learn the whole truth."

                Cecil gazed back at her sadly, offering her a tight-lipped smile in return. "I know, Rydia."

                She sighed, and allowed the device to take her away, blinking in surprise at the darkness that greeted her on the other side.

                "Careful," Edge warned, taking hold of her elbow and guiding her for a few steps.

                "Where exactly are we?" she asked.

                "The lower annex," Edge answered, sounding about as perplexed as she felt.

                "Is there any way to get light down here?" Kain asked off to their right.

                Edge released Rydia's arm and took a breath. A few seconds later, ribbons of flame jettisoned from his palms to ignite sconces set into deep recesses in the stone walls. Rydia glanced at Edge in surprise.

                "When did you learn to control your magic like that?" she asked archly.

                Edge glanced back at her with a bored expression. "Tell me your secrets, I'll tell you mine," he answered.

                "Yes but—" she began, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Cecil and Rosa who stood hand in hand.

                "We need to find the fleet," Cecil announced, stepping quickly off of the platform and guiding Rosa with him. "We need to return to the Lunar Whale if we plan to follow Golbez."

                "You _are_ going, then?" Edge asked.

                Cecil paused, uncertain for a moment, before looking back at Edge. "Yes," he answered. "I am."

                "Follow me," the ninja said, striding along the torch-lit hallway through Eblan's dark underbelly.

 

0-0-0-0

                The journey to the Lunar Whale was done in silence. Smoke rose from the plains in the distance, still smoldering in the aftermath of the Giant's destruction. It was an acrid stench and it made Rydia want to cough from the noxious fumes.

                Rydia kept to Edge's side, angled between him and everyone else—especially Kain. She knew the ninja's wrath had reached its boiling point, and she didn't want another fight to cause complications before they had gotten more answers out of the dragoon.

                Kain wisely kept his mouth shut and himself at a distance, but Rydia had a hard time ignoring him. If anything, she noticed him more. Why had he saved them? And what would become of him now?

                They had only walked so far before Cid intercepted them with the Enterprise. He set it down nearby, and they all shielded their eyes at the dust the propellers churned up.

                "Dammit, you're alive!" Cid shouted at them, galloping down the gangplank the moment it touched ground.

                His stout form bounded across the space between them, his rust colored beard bobbing right along with him. When he noticed Kain, he slowed to an uneasy, broken trot.

                "Cecil," Cid said, staring intently at the dragoon once he'd come to a stop. "What is that treacherous asshole doing with you?" he asked snappishly.

                Kain said nothing.

                Cecil glanced sideways at Kain and then at Cid. "He owes me a debt," he answered at last.

                Cid puffed out his cheeks. "Does he now?" the engineer blustered, resting his meaty fists on his hips. "Kain, I should kick your ass right here and now!" he threatened. "But instead I'll settle for you being put in stocks and sentenced for your crimes!"

                Rydia looked at Kain whose lips had been pressed into an indiscernibly grim line. He remained silent on the subject, as if whatever was decided on his behalf, was fitting.

                "Golbez has gone to the moon," Cecil explained.

                "For what reason?" Cid asked, his eyes scouring the rest of the group with a glint of annoyance. "And what about the Whitehair?"

                "FuSoYa has gone with him," Cecil elaborated.

                "Old Graybeard has gone back to the moon and taken our sworn enemy with him," Cid summarized, and then crossed his arms to wrestle with the idea. "Again—for what reason?"

                "A Lunarian is there," Rosa explained. "One who masterminded this entire world war."

                Cid stared at her for a full minute, taking in a deep breath and then releasing it. "So, you're telling me that there's _another_ sociopath behind _this_ sociopath who's trying to take over the world."

                "Yes," Edge answered at Rydia's left.

                "Just how many heads do we have to cut off before we cut off the main?" Cid complained, eyes narrowed.

                "Which is why we have to go to the moon," Cecil said, walking around Cid toward the Enterprise.

                Cid pivoted to shout at him over his shoulder. "And you're going to just help yourself to my ship, are you?"

                Cecil looked annoyed. "I can't do much worse to it," he said, pointing to the scorch marks and holes in the planking.

                The others followed after Cecil and Cid joined them, trotting alongside. "At least when I fly her, she can still fly by the end of the day!" the engineer complained. 

Cecil ignored this and climbed the gangplank, striding with purpose for the controls, only to be impeded by one of Cid's apprentices.

                The paladin whirled to glare at Cid, who had joined his crew in a fanned out circle around the party, apprehensively avoiding the dragoon.

                "He can't go with you," Cid said matter-of-factly, nodding at Kain.

                Cecil glanced at his silent companion. "What did you have in mind?"

                "The Elder of Mysidia has taken leadership of the fleet," Cid informed them. "Kain should answer to him for what he's done."

                "He's taken leadership of the fleet?" Cecil asked in surprise.

                "He's the only political figure in the world still alive and in one piece," Cid explained.

                "How did _that_ happen?" Edge muttered under his breath.

                "But if we leave him in the hands of the Elder—" Rosa said.

                "It's the right thing to do," Cid interrupted her, pointing angrily at Kain. "He's betrayed us twice, and brought this monstrous machine down on us. The least he can do is answer for these crimes."

                Rydia understood the argument—felt her own convictions on the subject move her—but she also felt a surprising amount of sympathy.

                The emotion startled her; made her frown for even considering it, but now that she stood beside Kain and saw what his choices had wrought, she pitied him. Golbez, the man they had chased and who had caused so much grief, had been only a pawn—and he was Cecil's own brother. If a Lunarian couldn't stand against Zemus' power, how was one ordinary man supposed to?

                "What good would it do?" Rydia asked, speaking up for the first time.

                "I'm sorry, what?" Cid asked, trying to see her over Edge's shoulder.

                "What good would it do?" she said again, only louder.

                Cid stared at her with unappreciative and narrowed eyes. "It's called justice," he answered. "It's closure."

                "But the war isn't over yet," Rydia replied, looking meaningfully at Cecil. "This isn't closure, it's a way to place blame."

                Cecil didn't look pleased by her words, but he also didn't refute them. Cid glared at him, waiting for a favorable answer.

                "Kain owes me a debt," he repeated.

                "He owes the world a debt," Cid decided. "What becomes of him after that, is up to the Elder to decide."


End file.
